iSoul

She’s got her heartbeats timed, rural baby waking, traveling, drinking,
buying instead of baking pie, burning her toast and rolling up
a dozen pink socks, a six pack of infantile dreams
that never left; she drove right on through her teens
and now languishes in her twenties,
went international and cross-country, went scuba diving
in Máncora, Peru, but never shook off the little ghost.
She’s still seeking
that adult high.

She’s iGen, with two Bachelors and going for her Masters, but she’s still bouncing
from cashier to cashier to Patreon, galvanized by pro-women
pop-culture icons, weighing herself five times a day,
counting Likes, Pins, Hearts, Right Swipes, Followers, Hits, Shares;
she’s lonely, but tries not to be afraid. Licks the sovereign blanc
from her lips and gives sad boys the finger, makes her signature
bubbly and large, thick and dashing.
She keeps her jets cool.

Inside,
she’s thrashing, popping anxiety meds and Ritalin, looking
for her inner meaning among all the Influencers, plus-size models, gamer angst and
the pro bono world. She keeps expecting,
falling over hopes
and tripping on dystopian novels,
joins the Green Revolution
and starts reading every tag and label, wonders if her Facebook
looks humble enough, whether she’s got too much stuff,
goes Minimalist, Accelerationist, Anarchist, Luddite, holds crate parties
and makes her own sushi. Jumps from Blue Apron to Hello Fresh
to McDonalds, and feels guilty.

But she doesn’t stop trying.
Doesn’t stop
throwing the covers off and roaring each morning. Another night with insomnia.
Another day with Baby Boomers looming, the atmosphere swooning, her neighbors getting shot
and her roommates smoking pot, hiding their secrets in their mattresses;
she dates porn addled men and 55 year olds,
cranks on the air conditioning and the heat when its cold,
stating, “Screw it.”
She’s a chunk of flint, without a stone.

She’s young and desperate, but bold.
Wearing three inch heels and her spine is shelved.
Pirating music and movies and TV shows.
She knows she hasn’t
found herself, or true love. Banishes chick-flicks, binges on noir and Carol Burnett.
Calls her mother every weekend.
She just longs to be unbound, or to come completely
undone.

She blows the seeds off a dandelion, and watches them get swept away
by the cars, her girlfriends’ voices from across the street
smothered by the audio-smog.

In her ten thousand mile stare, she wishes
that nihilism would die; that the techies and trumpenproletariats
and the Natural Beauty pushers and the Clean Living dealers
and the Fake Newsers and irony-philiacs and the Big Pharma Bros
and the all-male panels and the bad all-female remakes and the Yogis
and the reality shows and the superheroes and the 80’s junkies
would all
just
slow
or
go.

She knows, that she’s never seen a truly starry sky. Never tasted the Milky Way
above, never got to ride her bike
alone down a street at eight o’clock at night when she was nine. Her brain
whizzes, she worries about the smell
of her armpits, dips her head
into her smartphone. She’s dancing her best
in the eye
of a great
storm.

She’s got an iSoul.

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