Reboot the Shut-Down Circuit
Jasmine Melchor

A slow orange gleam whirred along the orbit,
bent to imperfect circles by a fluctuating wind.
I saw a silver plate by the corner,
followed by a trail of expensive shrimp,
and I tagged along, too reserved to frolic,
too pretentious to strut, too righteous to feign a limp.

Though I glisten in a suit,
I walked until here, barefoot,
and as I tiptoe around this elliptical set of wires,
my wavy hair is up for hours-long,
though my rounded cheeks abash me,
for pulsing orbs of day are replacing the pyres.

As I arrive at the heart of the helix,
the slow orange gleam is growing to a rapid vibration
to the scale of a linear-appearing, steady glitch,
and I cannot ascertain what this must portend,
but it seems the world has remembered me
like I am its childhood friend.

---

Jasmine Melchor’s Comments

At the lowest point of your life, when you’re scattered into pieces across the nooks and crannies of gas, dust, and some nonluminous matter, you begin to ask the Milky Way, “Have you really forgotten about me?”

If you wonder long enough, you might just get your answer.

Table of Contents