The Escapist -5/10/2013

.

It's been so long
since the Shadows have asked me
what do you want?

since every city skyline
stopped looking
like a denuded stand-in
for flying saucer
space monsters

since the Borg invaded
sector zero zero one
since the wormhole entrance
was mined to stop
the Dominion

recently online I saw a chart
some crazy fucker had made
with hundreds of starships

from all the many science fiction shows
it was as intricate

as my adolescent mispends
it had everything 

from Red Dwarf to Robotech

I stared at the screen for hours
and again, for light-years
as if back a few years

looming at that giant map of India,
laid out on the table before me vast
the night before I crossed that border

memory of whole worlds
being created and destroyed
by my imagination
came flooding back

my girlfriend asked me why I ever stopped
when I showed her all the tiny figures
I so painstakingly painted
for my Star Wars model collection

joked it was because
I finally gotta girlfriend
but wasn't joking

remember these things
making me happy
also remember these things
as pursuits you do alone
in your room
and don't share
the results
with many

there is a past
that for all its isolation and anger
also involved doing things
that simply made you happy
that took you away
to far flung corners
of the universe

all those hundreds of starships charted
no matter how powerful and fast
couldn't travel far enough
to catch up with a self-conscious me
who wanted to rehabilitated from geek

though
amongst all the worlds
and their fictional lives
only this one I stand on
continues to change

these days
my phone makes a sound
like a communicator from Star Trek

I don't mean it reminds me of that
I mean the actual sound has been downloaded

and it makes that noise
and even though
I reckon it's really cool
I'm still a little sheepish
when telling people
embarrassed

but like, y'know,
maybe not quite
as much

as I once would have been.

___________________

-Peace.

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