Emerson Harris, Check the Box

I used to believe when I was younger… I used to believe that people were born with their heads cocked since that’s how they always looked at me. Check box one or, check other. People are unaware. They don’t make the same furrows between the layers as I do. They don’t flicker and twitch, making active judgments about what part of me belongs today. Which component of my personality will offend the least and mix the best, and which will work and succeed and bury the lead like a switchboard of features that determine my fate, and I’ll always be an impostor? I’m always lost and asking for directions, and people lead me in the right direction like the scarecrow. As though tornadoes are sweeping me in every direction. Dorothy, on the other hand, does not want to play today. She’s getting ready for the ACT. With the Scantron the box is empty, and it stares at me, challenging me to pick one. Well, I’m a boxing specialist. It can hold my entire existence, and I’ve got it down to a science. Because where there are roots, there is power, I can pack my entire identity, yet I’m all topsoil. My blood is like water and oil that won’t cling together. In secret nooks, I read my father’s old books. That camera that captures all of my memories in a split second and saves them for when my memory fades. That was the lighter that lit the fire. Everything fits into a box and can be moved from door to door. However, that is not the type of box that people ask for. So many cants and cans, so many lines in the sand. I can clearly see both realms, and I skip, hop, dance, and fall between them, unseen. I belong in the spaces between. Check all that may apply.