I was a Kaleidoscope

I remember the children's exhibits at the Science Centre. The ones that explain magnetism and they've got gadgets for you to play with. I was always amazed how a heavy metal bar could float above another bar of the same magnetic polarity.

You could look between them, but there is nothing. But you can't force it down. You push, it's difficult, and it always wins or forces you aside last minute. Throws you to the left just when you think you can make the bars meet.

Yet you flip the bar around and they stick together so quickly you have to be careful you don't get your fingers clamped between them.

Do the metal bars know why they do that? Do they want to behave this way? They don't seem to have a choice. It's just the way of their existence. They repel each other, they attract each other. They couldn't do otherwise even if they wanted to.

I'd like to think we have a choice. But sometimes the magnetism works on it own even if we fight it. To say we don't own the yoke of control would be a gross excuse, i'd like to believe we create what we desire... and things happen that make you not so sure.

I feel like a single polarity sphere suspended inside the hollow core of a bigger single polarity sphere. I can't touch any of the walls around me. I can't move any direction, the invisible force keeps me where i am no matter how much the outer sphere moves....




I put on my overcoat and walked into winter - my teeth chattered rhythms
And they were grouped in twos or threes, like a morse code message was sent from me to me. cars on slippery slopes, they're stuck...
People pushing through their mittens as i was beginning to feel it soaking through my shoes, getting colder with every step i took to your apartment, dear.

And i was a kaleidoscope... the snow on my lenses distorting the image of what was only one of you and i didn't know which one to address as all your lips moved.

This is when i forget breathe all the things i scripted, they sound unfounded.
And the look that you're giving me, it tells me exactly what you are thinking...
"this ain't working anymore."

They got their mothers worked into a panic
Sledding down hills into oncoming traffic
The parents layered clothes until the children couldn't move then kept them outside til their noises were blue and I got left there, too.

I put on my overcoat and walked into winter, my teeth chattered rhythms.
And they were grouped in twos or threes like a morse code message was sent from me to me.


-death cab for cutie