around our coffee table we dream out loud

our wall of clocks all tick on a different cadence echoing into the living room, where we
sit around our coffee table, listening to the clocks, space furnished with alley loots:
broken-and-glued-back-together dumpster anthropologie, party residue on the wood
floors, scattered bombastic coffee cups, music box ticket stubs, and tola wrappers, and
more ash trays than tenants. we walk in one by one, jackets and bags tossed to the
ground. lucky you, you’re last in. you get the biggest welcome. like a gesture given after
months apart. energy is filling the space, tunes playing from our record player, candle
flames dancing, cauldron boiling in the kitchen. the house is alive again. “how was your
day?”

our stories start small then grow in substance and volume. “good”… except for the
smelly white haired bosses and long hours and not enough sleep and can’t afford eggs
and still no text back and no seats on the bus and kids are dying and everything is on
fire and and and. somehow always finding ourselves slipping into dreaming out loud.
the dream where we have delegated the new roles in our alternative world.

you the alchemist, you talk to the plants and collect rocks and make potions
you take your alchemy to craft and turn colorful what is dull
you the advocate you sing words of wisdom
your advocacy reaches creatures of another language
you the academic, you guide people through arts and letters
your apprenticeship stories knowledge transcending generations

our house of magic, where it’s everyone’s birthday. a coven of creation and care. bare
feet in the grass. is this the same world you’re seeing? a fig tree centers our
neighborhood, where we sit and eat and dance and sing and laugh until we cry or cry
until we laugh.

much like we do around the coffee table now.