A boy is born, nose running before he knows why, but he knows this place doesn’t feel like home, doesn’t feel like warmth, doesn’t feel like womb, and the room is bright, bright like a future might be if you run long enough, but how long is long enough and does speed affect time or brightness or both or none of the above, the young boy wonders as the volcano he made for his third grade science fair project erupts, and the baking soda/vinegar lava runs like his nose did when the boy first erupted from his mother, who ran into the arms of another because his father ran for different offices but his tears never flowed, at least not in front of the family, and so the boy never learned how to water his own face organically and, like a garden of neglect, his hardened expressions, these hand-me-down stares of death failed to cultivate anything lasting, failed to yield anything sustainable, which left him with soiled hands he couldn’t wipe his snotty nose with, which left him thinking he couldn’t grow alone, which left the boy, now a manchild, running from peach orchard to peach orchard, a hoe-style gardener, tortured by the eden he couldn’t see in himself, let alone anyone else, which he learned over time leads to breakdowns, not like his engine stopped running, but the kind of breakdowns that jump-start breakups, now her makeup is running and her makeup is running and her makeup is running, but his day is still coming, the boy, now an old man, reminds himself as he buries his absent father beside cries for help, convinced his future might quite possibly maybe still be just as bright as the room he first came into the day the boy was born, nose running.

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