Brian Postalian: Covid Confession

When I was a kid, I used to think my nose was a mountain.
I’d squish it against the mirror, the pillow, these fingers, the wall,
to rid myself of that figure,
and become who I was meant to be.

I’m waiting to reinvent myself;
take apart the parts defective and find something finer.
I’m playing persistent catch up;
two years behind, one career slow.

Finally, the world is moving at my pace,
and I can’t move.

The space between before and then,
stretched along a long rubber band
ready to snap, fold in half, and break apart.
Scatter itself into the corners of my room.

Dust collects upon my skin,
like a fucking magnet.
I’m a walking
metaphor of shortcomings.
Except I’m not walking anymore.

​I’m myself from last Tuesday,
awake and perfectly still
in scattered sheets and dirty underwear.
Like a composition from an Xavier Dolan film.
A lost love’s chest covered in come.

In dreams my naked body walks across cold sand,
slowly treading my feet closer to the sea.
Beyond the cargo ships in the distance,
day breaks, beckoning me to follow.
To sink myself in order to swim.

I’m amiss of mid-somethings.
A breath of fog, hovering above my flesh,
ready to jump and slip into my Sunday best ...
instead of resting.

My body resists becoming what I’d like to be.

I’m waiting to just arrive,
   the way flowers do in the spring.
     The way you don’t notice,
           until one day
                 they do.

This poem appeared in CreativeArmenia's website.