Bubble-Wrap Boy

 

I fall in love with every girl I float by next to on the street. I was born to die, and, though everyone is, God must hate me. My skin is made of the thinnest material. It resembles bubble-wrap. I’m bumpy: a translucent boy opaque, cloudy, with lust. I’ve been punctured before. All my hot air, all my inner workings, pour out like confessions. I’m absurd and yet I want what everyone else wants. I had a date the other night with a girl with eyes like needles. She probed my life and found nothing but wrinkles. She hasn’t called. If I ever feel the pressure of a pair of lips, the fingers dangerous along my malleable spine, the soft, rose quiet of pleasure and the death at its end, I think I might die anyway. I can’t hold scissors and run. I can’t hold anything too beautiful for too long because I know, if I trace its edges, I can die; then again, I feel this should be a common thing. People might consider the way it changes us, if more people were murdered by the sharpness of beauty.

 

 

 

The Cloning Fiasco

 

I wanted to play God, so I built a laboratory. I wanted to play science, so I compiled my beakers, studied my blood, constructed the freezers. I wanted to live forever, so I decided to clone myself. I wanted to remember it all, so I stored my memories in water droplets. I wanted to be able to relearn the world, so I put the droplets into my blood. I realized, I wanted to love but would not be able to have both a lover and a clone. It’s never a feel good thing, insemination.

I wanted to play God so I could play with the universe and live forever. I wanted so badly to be memorable. I wanted so badly to remember this all. The way the freezers were once ore from a mountainside. The way my blood was once cosmic radiation. The way love was never around, but beauty was abundant. I wanted to play God, so I held my breath and just stood silent, still.

 

 

 

The Inventor

 

My lover lives three states away, ergo I promised her to invent teleportation. The first success yielded an ant with no legs. The second, a bird with no beak. The third, a cat with no claws. I miss her so bad that the fourth time, I tried it on a wedding ring. It turned into an osprey and flew itself to death against the bay window.

I finally mailed her an arrival port. If correctly installed, I should come out the other side in one whole piece and hold her. If not, I in pieces being held by her. My trust in her might kill me.

Either way, I’m flicking the switch now; either way, love is only real if it kills you.

 

 

 

 

Samuel J Fox author photo

 

Samuel J Fox is a bisexual poet and essayist living in small-town North Carolina. He appears in places such as Sooth Swarm Journal, Cahoodaloodaling, and Vagabond Cit Lit. He frequents graveyards, coffee shops, and Twitter (@samueljfox).