I wake up singing (!!)
“Chiquita Banana” –
I really love it when
I wake up singing.
I flip through my feed
and catch small flashes
of inspiration. They
come at me, of
course, from
all directions,
just like my im
possible room
mates. Here’s
two of them
now. They’re
brand new
and so, having
just arrived,
“Team,” I say,
“meet Chee Zee.”
Everyone rowdily
says hello to Chee.
“And this here is
Mr. C.H. Allen, Jr.,
but you can call
him Chuck.” No
one worries about
the joke but me. E
veryone gets a
long swimmingly.
I adjust my direct
ion, facing the
corner in hopes
of giving the
gang at least
the notion of
comfort, of
elbow room,
a luxury
here;
I’ve a lot of
impossibility
to fit inside
my tiny home.
The place is abuzz,
people are getting
along, the air has
a palpable sizzle of
expectancy you
can almost see,
a whistle just
enough off
register that if
you scrunched
your face just
so, you’d trick
your ears,
swearing
you hear it,
like a stove-
top kettle
the instant
before its
hiss. Without
using breath,
I keep singing.
Catching tunes
from I don’t know,
it’s freeflow radio.
The signals pulse
more from below so
the drifting melodies
interfere less
with the stuff
in my skull
(where it
feels like a
particularly
competitive
game of dodge
ball is underway,
or perhaps it’s
Olympic tether
ball!). Compart
mentalization
in this, my tiny
apartment filled
with me and all
of my impossible
roommates (I can
hear Silly-Willy chit
chatting now with
Chuck, who’s such
a flirt, though he’d
never own up to it.
And poor Chee, beet
red at the wall of El
vis, smitten already
by Siri. She does
that so unwittingly;
“That’s Siri S. Li,
and don’t you
forget it,” she’d
blurt, and then
pretend a blush.
But she’s not
shy in the
least). Now,
at ease enough
in my corner to
tune it all out,
I contemplate
what the day
has all ready
for me. “Are
you lonesome,
tonight,” I in
audibly sing,
incapable of
going a day
without
The King
(his face is
on the calendar
– 12 Months of
Elvis – on the
opposite wall;
I can feel him
looking down
on me). Then
after a bit, and
just as abrupt,
but softly,
so as not
to interrupt
the others,
“One
is the lone
liest number
that you’ll
ever do.”
And they
just keep
coming.
I could,
I know,
so easily
knock all
of this off
rhythm, blow
to bits this
composition.
I could make
a difficult go of
it all, turn the
day into dust
as if I had
just awoken
from a dream
wherein I was
someone
else, and
that this
pedestrian
pastiche
was never
meant to be;
that it is naught
of me.
. . . But
what do
I do . . . ?
I toughen
my mettle,
right what
ever dis
cord, and
focus[!!].
For what a
magnificent
thing it
is to
wake up
singing!
I think
that I
shall
dance
the entire
day through,
just me and
my crew, my
lovely set of im
possible friends.
And what an
adventure’s in
store for me,
as that’s pre
cisely what I
choose to do.
adventure’s in
store for me,
as that’s pre
cisely what I
choose to do.
