Landmines

It’s a separate organism trapped in the innards of its parent. There’s a whole lot of meiosis going on. As you point to the faded illustration with your bitten nail, I can’t help but stare at your hairy wrist.

The pollen lands on the pistil. Just imagine, millions of beings encapsulated in these tiny specks, carried by the wind and insects and hoping they won’t end up in puddles or chimneys or gutters. I move my head closer to the page to breathe in the sweat-infused air. Later that day, I play Minesweeper and feel the vaguest, most indefinable yearning.

We are drunk at high noon in the full sun. We can’t wrap our heads around the beauty of the vegetation. I try not to think that you took me on this trip only to make me forget you are leaving. Two weeks of doing manly things like pissing in the woods and lighting fires and talking about all the girls you’ve slept with. Manly things like watching you undress. You show me the jar filled with swift water fleas, gelatinous hydras, deadly two-eyed flatworms. I wish I could also enclose this moment in a piece of glass.

We talk over the phone now and then as I drink my way through the angst of my twenties, the aimlessness of my thirties, the low-flame depression of my forties. Our phones become watches become chips become implants. Our hair becomes grey then thin then nonexistent. Fat creeps over our organs and under our skin. The pollen tube drills deeper into the cellulose flesh.

The road is wet and black, the stars are plenty. After hours of driving, I’m in your spacious living room on your expensive sofa, holding your trembling bald head against my chest. I wonder if the salt from your tears will leave flowery patterns on my shirt. When the worst crying is over, I talk nonsense to distract you. Just imagine, the pollen tube finally reaches the entrapped creature, one of the sperms fuses with the egg, and a whole new life begins.