Plastic Rainbow

Originally posted March 29, 2024.

Photo by Max Di Capua on Unsplash

I cannot place the bullseye 
in my memories the origin 
of my affinity for watching
rainfall. Dredging far back
through the expired layers
of yesteryear would have me 
scratching the back of my head 
from the inside. The closest
and clearest—closer than oxygen
to hydrogen in water and clearer
than sunlight marrying horizons
to ocean surfaces in the afternoon
—memory that's still willing
to take my hand, gentle like
a mother walks her children
across a street at a long red-light
on their first day of school,
is watching the ending credits
of a Japanese cartoon, unfiltered
and subtitled, and rediscovered
in highschool. The protagonist 
observing a light rainy day
from her window. A sequin
smile cozy on her face.
Her head cupped by hands
and elbows snoozing easy
with a dormant window sill.
The camera frame is fixed
only on her house with a tree
in the left upper corner.
That is all we will be gifted.
There is a fool's gold tinge
that glitters the screen,
like an enchantment that will fade
at the stroke of midnight,
to imply the presence of a sun,
performing the reign of evening
and the hand-wave of afternoon,
that hangs just out of frame,
only for protagonist to see—
maybe a star is behind the viewer?
Delusion that looks like introspection.
Wonder has a prison-cell
in both of our purviews
and hindsights. Neither
of us will be the first to blink
so wonder is the eternity
contained in two minutes
of credits. Loneliness that looks 
like independence. Soulless 
is the English version. 
It was shaken, fleeced,
and excised of all resemblance
of any cultural originality held
after the required star spangled
red, white, and blue sanitation.
So it would become palatable
for Big Uncle Sam's screen.
So it could be dare be televised
for Big Uncle Sam's audience.
A fragmented Frankenstein
of a caricature, so bankrupt
artistically that it could pass
for satire on localization
parodies, that I nonetheless 
relished in during preschool
like lungs treasure the first
heartful breathe after CPR. 
A beautiful adrenaline shot
of nostalgia into the soul,
it made me long for the days
before liquor, from a tiny bottle
of plastic with the chipped red
nail polish cap, flooding an open 
gunshot wound in the head.
Reminiscence that looks like living.

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