Eulogy of a Meteor

by Stephanie Ulloa Sahagun

I don’t know that I enjoy keeping myself company as much as I did before. I wish I could flaunt all of the new hobbies I’ve picked up: knitting, crocheting, painting, embroidery and rug-making. But they’ve only left me with piles of yarn and cloth that float around to nudge me while I sleep, a fuzzy reminder of these unfinished worlds, of the birds with pieces of string for wings, of bears without faces. They keep me up, so I’ve started listening to the monsters under my bed. They say some beautiful things sometimes. I don’t know how many of them there are, but I know I’ve heard at least two. I also don’t remember when I decided to write down fragments of their conversations. Here are the ones I keep revisiting:

…Have you ever done cartwheels in front of windmills?

…but you do such a wonderful job of having two eyes and two legs so let that be enough.

Stop basing your decisions on dandelions and the wind!

Please write me into the margins of your yawns…

Dandelions are facing extinction following an epidemic of hyperactive daydreamers.

The glue was still drying on the feelings I had for…

Sometimes the universe convinces you that you’ve lost something when she knows that you’d never let go on your own.

I think I’m better at daydreaming than I am at living.

I wish the Earth would make up its mind and stop spinning!

He has this tidy mentality that I find unbelievably boring and he borrowed his frown from his parents.

… a systematic solar sadness…

I’ve heard about her. She writes in cliches and crayons.

Who would have guessed that the sky has brown eyes…

Cupid’s stuck making faces in the mirror while his wife cries in the other room.

… but did you catch the news last night? I was busy but I remember … the headline, it said EULOGY OF A METEOR…

… tell me about why you hate nice weather?

That’s it. Their words belong to you now too. If you hold them under your tongue before bed, you can taste them while you sleep.