Chaos Theory

Carolyn says she believes in angels
while mascara spiders creep thickly along the
heavy baggage beneath her eyes like the
black pitch of the school hallways at night or
the charcoal that she dips her fingernails in and I
remember cheating on my math test that morning
So
I tell her I believe in people.

Roasted honey nut, the color she was born with but
you really wouldn’t know it because of the midnight L’Oréal
she chooses, tragically highlighted with Punk Pink or
Raging Red from a bottle and 15
minutes of waiting –
It spills limply over her black eyes whenever she leans down to write and
Carolyn says she believes in fate.

In planets aligning in the universe and
Feng shui that keeps mice away and prevents ulcers but also
makes a girl fall in love with a boy but
I know all about chemistry and hormones and catalysts so I
think I believe in science.

In reincarnation, she thinks she’ll come back as a bird
Or maybe a peacock and I say I agree when I
see those striped stockings that come to her knees and
neon earrings lifeless at her shoulders but she only laughs …
tells me I never really see her and to
call her later.

Now with the dial tone in my ear
the cold trembling and I’m suffocating on nothing
because I really see her and I
know she believes in the afterlife but
she doesn’t believe in laughter and
the phone just rings and rings and rings …

Carolyn said she believed in angels.