When I was small, I wanted to have every
heroic title & honor in American
textbook history, the same books I stack
my 10-inch monitor from a recent
dumpster dive. The unique combination of names grows
scarcer each year, I reclaim a thing & centuries later it’s on
street poster stomped over, maybe it already is. I search
jobs that pay me to stare at words & remembered our local
restaurant was looking for someone, I
thought it was nice, bringing an idea into
existence:
a breath on the window, a canvas for circles,
or sketches on a red-stained napkin. Being a
Lego
designer was my first dream, I wonder if they’re still
hiring—the power to make a shelter some constant
or boats into space shuttles. I wanted
a small cabin so we wouldn’t have to
pay mortgage, although this sublet room with hear-through walls
feels quite similar. My parents interpreted this dream as a sign:
I would become a great engineer &
invent magnificent machines. I was,
poetically, like some robot that runs
into a wall & keeps on running, but
there’s this programming joke: it’s not a bug,
it’s a feature. Maybe the robot has a reason
—
a reason that applies to me.
Calloway Song plans on pursuing a BA in Religious Studies and Linguistics at Duke University. He has obtained a green checkmark from Google reCAPTCHA. More at callowaysong.com.