Existing/ Jennifer Kreizman/ Poetry

Existing

Jennifer Kreizman

Close your eyes and imagine that you aren’t here. imagine that you don’t exist, you never existed, except now you blink and you exist, everywhere. You’ve existed for all time. Actually, you never didn’t exist. Your brain now wants you to think about how you always existed. Everywhere. You close your eyes, and you blink, and you’re no longer laying in bed. You’re now in school. When did this happen? You’re at a desk, and only now did you realize the color of your shirt. Is it blue? oh. cool. Then you’re back to not existing, until you’re laying in bed trying desperately to fall asleep, and look up at the ceiling and realize, you have been existing. Have you been existing? You fall off earth again and wake up, existing. In the mirror, your reflection now has short hair, and your reflection is cleaning the hair from the sink.

It doesn’t feel like you. Is it? What distinguishes you from the reflection? You and the reflection are parallel lines. You are the same. You are the reflection. But you never cross paths. Maybe the reflection exists when you don’t. You make eye contact with the scissors in the bed, and it all makes sense. The puzzle piece is you. But it doesn’t make sense. Though it doesn’t phase you much huh? Since in the moment, you’re not existing. And if you’re not existing, what’s the point in being phased by something that’s not happening to you. Maybe your reflection is the one who’s phased. But, phased or unphased, What matters at the end? Is there an end? I don’t think there’s an ending. We fall for never ending poems, yet, if I told you to close your eyes and imagine you didn’t exist, what would you even be?