Helmet ...

(Theme: August rush/Impatience. This story is all true, events from Monday - Thursday) - 2023 August 24

My therapist tells me

That maybe I shouldn’t rush

Into the next relationship.

—Like he knows me so well.

My three closest friends

Also tell me that I need

To slow down, not get lost

Launching into the next—

          Feeling loved and irritated

          Distracts me from lunch,

          So I people-watch: wrrrrrRRR...  here comes

          A college kid on a battery-powered skateboard.

                  “So fast,” I think, chewing while

                    I admire his thick blonde hair flapping,

                    Body canted forward like a bowsprit,

                    Eyes squinting against the breeze.

                              He passes me. “___Ohhhh!! … SHIT.” I hear

                              A chorus of young college dudes behind me,

                              Then turn to see, along the street,

                                        A white shoe…

                                          A palm-sized remote…

                                             An orange-wheeled board 

                                                        slowly rolling to a standstill…

                              But he’s not on the board, 

                              nor the street, 

                                                     anymore.

                    He’s trying to walk, grabbing his head,

                    Falling at a dizzy flail into a locked bike instead,

                    Before succumbing to his limits

                    And sitting on the spinning cement.

She tells me I should delete dating apps.

          And what?    Go to a sports bar?    or line-dancing?—   No.

He says 

“You punish yourself with partners.”

        She pops in 

“You’ve too much empathy for people who hurt you.”

                    A homeless wizard kicks his skateboard toward the road curb.

                    A black ponytail brings over his jettisoned shoe.

                    The bike police come, and call the van police.

                    I walk over, too, after I finish lunch.

She doesn’t just say “You did this to yourself,” so I listen:

          “Go slow and easy,   before screwing your two worlds    together.”

My therapist makes it a prescription: 

          “When a boundary comes up,

             See how they respond—First—as a buffer 

                 between you being together and partnership.”

Like a helmet.

                    He’s still grabbing his head. 

          “That was a hard crash,” I say.

                              “I can’t really Hear you,” pointing to his right ear,

                                  “I hit my head hard. 

                                      They’re taking me to ER.”

          “Take care of yourself,” I wave; 

          he waves back, eyes squinting between his pain.

                    He’s not okay… brain-walls swelling 3 

weeks before school 

                    starts.

“I can’t hear you,” was also me to my friends, 

          3 weeks before that crashing 

                    heart.

She says I always go head-first, 

every love like an August rush.

So I’m tightening a thick-strap head-pad—

  since the ground 

     likes to kiss me 

                        so much.