Two New Poems by California Jones

“I looked everywhere,” I rehearsed in my head. I had lost something valuable. What was it? Who did it belong to? I couldn’t remember the details. I just had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and this high sort of pressure from the top front part of my throat up into the skull of my head. I felt like I needed to cry maybe? Oh, man this was strange. Everything was going from my mind so quickly it seemed. What was my name? Where was I? How had I come to be here?

I rubbed my eyes and looked around the room but it was dark. I tried listening for sounds to give me a clue, but there were no sounds. There was nothing. There was no airflow, I noticed. I started to panic. Oh, no. This had happened before. Suddenly I remembered. I was running out of oxygen. This might be my last chance to stay alive but I needed to find some way to get more oxygen. I looked everywhere. I couldn’t see anything. I felt the room start to spin. Again. The floor came up to my cheek bone. I’ll just rest my head on this nice cool ground a minute, I thought, the sense of panic dulling into the sweet embrace of the hard surface of the floor.

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I have a theory.

Or two or three.

I work to disprove them.

This process is undoing me.

I have a process.

It’s scientific.

Well kind of.

I take notes about things and I try to be specific.

I have a theory.

It starts with drugs.

I think I need to try them.

To know how Pandora felt opening a box.

Or to know how

My best friend feels

Or where she goes to

When her eyes get lost

I have a test

It goes something like

Adding more cards in other places

When the house keeps falling over every time

I start to see this theory

Isn’t good for anything

And I need to stop these rounds of tests

So I try to stop

I make earnest attempts

Things get worse

But I keep it under wraps

Then it comes time to graduate school

So I go ahead and do that

In the photo with grandma

I see myself going gone

I wander into the desert

Dunno where to or for how long