I’m having trouble with the inspiration for writing today, especially with finals looming, so here’s a writing project from last year, based on the idea of past lives. Cuz years are important to it, this was written at the end of April, 2023, and I was born in 2004.
If I were born 163 years earlier I would’ve been of consumption, subsequently placed into the care of an isolated ward where I could waste my somber days away, an invalid with the soul-wearing knowledge that God had forsaken me for the sin of loving another boy.
If I were born 109 years earlier I would’ve been employed at a horseshoe factory in Londonderry at the ripe age of eleven, where I would continually defy death from obtuse and inhumane machines, until meeting my end eye-to-eye with a horse’s ass while fitting an iron.
If I were born 80 years earlier I would’ve been the last of seven Belarusian children, the sole, unlucky boy to be called to the great war in the West, and 79 years ago to this day be the last casualty before Hitler fell, the struggle over forever.
If I were born 52 years earlier I would’ve been an up-state farm boy swept up in the Woodstock pilgrimage by friends whom I loathed, then to try primitive LSD at their urging, soon to fall asleep in a hayfield and be crushed to death by a tractor at age 17.
If I were born 2 years earlier I would’ve been a private secondary school student finally finding the power to ask out my friend and lifelong crush, only to, the day after, 4 years ago, be quarantined, subsequently graduate, and never see her again.
If I were born 20 years later I would open my eyes for the first time today, to see my mother looking back, through her Apple co. Augmented Reality Holovision Goggles, an early learning experience of the Regula Capitale I’d never forget for all my years under hologram stars and hollowed skies, all the moisture sucked out long ago, save for the tear on my cheek.