Disconnected is a column published bi-weekly by Rob George. Disconnected is a collection of semi stream-of-consciousness poems usually generated from one compelling thought. The rest of the poem is written around this thought, at an attempt to be both surprising but concrete.

Dead Skin

By Rob George

I tied a blade of grass five times, nimbly moving my fingers to create the knots. She accepted it as a gift and we went on with our lives. Four ducklings socialized on a log suspended over the cold Midwestern lake. We couldn't figure out how they got there. They couldn't yet fly like their mother. I think of how passive my actions are when I'm not manic. Yesterday by the lake we thought about how useful a hammock would have been in our situation. Today we brought along one to use.

Due to a psychotic break lost in the memory of repressed semesters, most of my current emotions are flaccid and directionless.

Leaving the hammock, we waded through the shallow carpet of seaweed amidst water-carried conversations emanating from a crowd of boaters. It was Wednesday, it was sunny. In deep water, I removed my shorts and felt the water flowing through every inch of my body. She doesn't like to skinny dip. Letting my hair drop from inside my cap, I asked her if she wanted to shave my head that night. She seemed excited.

She peels swatches of dead skin off my back, leftovers from a second degree burn that has caused explosive itchiness throughout the last few days.

We moved my mattress from my small room to a larger vacant room down the hall in this decrepit old house. Inside our new, spacious room are a mattress and a shelf full of books that both of us have read. This room has four windows, my old room had one. This room is carpeted. She sleeps with her socks on, but that night one had fallen off. I comment on it in the morning.

She is going to be a writer. I am going to work in an office building that is gray and brutalist and oppressive.

She is leaving in two days. We move through our abridged time together like heat seeking missiles; I'll leave it up to the Mythbusters to appraise whether or not it is possible for us to collide. In my dreams she asks if we can go to Dunkin' Donuts. My fabricated consciousness is embarrassed that she doesn't like my French Press.