In a universe parallel

I would be an infidel

Someone who cannot spell

Yet loves to ride a carousel

Or a proper southern belle

In a mansion I would dwell

Thinking everything is swell

A 50’s pin-up bombshell

Without a single fat cell

A gal who’d never yell

But is always raising hell

A soldier in a drug cartel

Occupying a prison cell

With a doctorate from Cornell

Perhaps Harvard as well

Displaying my Prizes Nobel

Here I stand

Hand in hand

With my double

The business man

Confident, affluent, valiant, bold

All of the things I withhold

Here we are

Eye to eye

With my double grinning, sly

His winning smile among the best

Surrounds himself

With the things I cant get

There we were

In the sand

On a plot of my doubles land

He cracks his lips

And begins to speak

"Hello, my name is Neverweak."

The opposite of me would most likely be

A blonde haired boy with 

       eyes like the sea

His favorite subject would maybe be Math

This would set him on a 

       very different path

He wouldn't have interest in writing or art

Of poetry communities he'd 

       have no part

He'd marry a girl he met in high school

It would be blonde girls that 

       make him drool

He would graduate college and 

       get a degree

His big slobby dog would be pedigreed

He would have absolutely 

        no use for cats

They wouldn't like him either 

        how

             bout 

                  that?

He'd be boastful and proud 

         and annoyingly loud

He'd have lots of friends and 

         enjoy a crowd

He'd probably like yellow 

         (because I like blue)

He'd hate to be mellow and 

         want everything new

He would definitely be a 

         miser with money

He'd drink lots of coffee 

         drizzled with honey

He would act like a snob if he 

         met homeless Bob

He'd work every day at a 

         very 

              boring 

                      job

My polar opposite is the average Joe Blow

He would get into the fast lane and                     drive super slow

You probably see him a few times a day

He's the guy who cares not 

        if 

            he 

               has 

                  any 

                      say

He might be racist and homophobic too

He'd point out all he 

       thinks wrong with you

He might get on your nerves 

       with God and religion

He'd be less interesting than 

       your average pigeon

I'm not saying he would be a bad guy

But don't be surprised if you 

       catch him in a lie

I've got morals as well as some attitude

While he would be mean 

       and possibly rude

I've painted quite a picture of who

       I am not

Pretty much the epitome of all

       that I've fought

I do have my faults. 

       Oh yeah, 

             by the dozen

I've been known to be just a 

       little bit brazen

I've got issues like anxiety and ADD

I've fallen in love with men 

       bad for me

I hold my cat higher in regard

       than most humans

I've carelessly traipsed off and 

       left my sister fumin'

But I certainly don't wish to be 

       opposite me

It would be more fun to fall out 

       of 

          a 

            tree!

I took a portal to another world. It was hidden in my mirror.

It's the same as mine, but yet different.

I found myself, we were the same, but different.

We looked the same. We talked the same. We had the same experiences. 

Yet she was darker than me.

She did not tell our mother about the night in Arkansas.

She had not wrote that note, she had gone for the knife instead.

Her help was in failed counseling and drugs. 

She did not have the same interests as I did. 

She left her flute in the closet, it had grown mold in the casing.

She did not get the part in the play, she said she had lost interest.

She never became friends with the drum major, then grew to realize that maybe he wasn't the best of people.

She never found love.

Like I did.

Her hair was matted and she smelled of weed and alcohol. The same as our father.

I took her by the hand, and held it close. I whispered to her.

"It gets better."

I came out of the portal, back to my own mind and body. I was crying, because I realized. We were the same, in so many ways. She was the embodiment of my negative emotions, played out in her own world. 

I wish I could've helped her, helped me.

But in my world, I'm finally happy, I've healed. 

I left her world behind.

I only wish that she could leave hers behind as well.

Growing up I always wanted to be someone else, other than me.

I always imagined being born before the turn of the Century, why? The world of artists and writers of the 20th Century lived in Paris, wrote, painted and lived among one another.

Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter, Alice B. Toklas, Josephine Baker, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso 

Does this all sound familiar? Of course...Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' Owen Wilson's character is ME..I wanted to be among these artists before Woody Allen wrote this screenplay. 

When I read another parallel of me in the universe I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway and be his muse, then I remembered he married and divorced all his muses!  When I devoured Gertrude Steins work, I realized, I wasn't crazy about her. I thought F. Scott Fitzgerald had a crazy wife and he lived to party!

So another parallel of me will never be these wonderful, writers and artists. They were just like you and I, but their problems were larger than life, because of who they were.

I think I'll write the novel of the century one day and an art piece that dazzles, it may not be during the greatest Century of our time, but it will be in my time...I'll just dream about being in their company for a day or two and wake up.

In a parallel celestial body

another vessel of space and time and dust and matter

where the moon is born old and grows young

there's that girl that everyone knows by name

and rumours seethe

of the kind of extra-curricular activity she engages in.

Aromatic heavy loud

intemperate atmosphere;

the perfect habitat

for her personal divergence,

her adherence to the tenets of the order of Tumult

of Yeah Whatever

of Yeah i'll b there with the...

THC-bearing leaves, or sensuality, or willingness

to turn their eyes and thoughts.

Onto Me.

Wait, no.

Her.

Get-togethers are literal in her opposite macrocosm

and she can hang out wherever

and all of the hundred words she knows how to dispense-

everyone will hang to them desperately

to receive a little fraction

of her.

"Morning Steve," I said, flashing my temporary security badge as I entered the building. He smiled and waved. He was nothing like the Steve I knew, who just grunted at you.

"Last few days," said Tanya as I strode into the office. "Are you ready for it to be over, or will you miss us?"

"It's been a pleasure working with you guys, but I certainly won't miss the commute," I chuckled.

"Haha, I bet not!" I didn't want to know the Tanya in my universe, there was no way she'd be as sweet as this one.

"Yeah, yeah, translating over from the parallel universe is so tough. Blah, blah, blah," mumbled Larry. I ignored him. Everyone knew he'd wanted to be chosen for the Trans-Universe Work Exchange Program, and that he resented me because I was chosen. But the point was to meet our parallels, and his worked for a different company.

"Don't lie," said Daniel as he emerged from his office, "you're going to leave and never look back." We both grinned as we shook hands. We were parallels.

"How are you, Daniel?" I asked.

"As good as you, Daniel!"

Tanya rolled her eyes at our daily joke. "I won't miss that," she chuckled.

Daniel and I (a strange thought, even after a month) went into his office. It looked nothing like mine: there were no knick-knacks, no posters or pictures, nothing like that. But we were parallels. Similar in many ways, yet very different.

In fact, there were a lot of things about the other Daniel I envied. His self confidence, his ambition. I was always second guessing myself, worrying over every little thing. And where he was so good with people and always seemed to know just what to say, I had a hard time with others. The only reason I was able to get along so well with the folks here was because they treated me like my mirror self. It made it easier somehow.

My doppelganger held up some paperwork and smiled. "Came in early this morning."

"Awesome," I said, taking it from him. "So the merger will go through after all."

"I never doubted."

I flipped through the pages, skimming it thoughtfully. The merger was huge, and we both stood to get bonuses for it. But I stopped dead in the middle of one of the pages. I frowned.

"This can't be right."

"What's that?"

"Here," I said pointing. "We're laying off Tanya and Larry?"

"We have to get rid of a few people on our end. Mergers are expensive."

"Then how come our bonuses are so big?" I asked, indicating what I thought was an absurd figure.

"Sure, we could keep them on, but that would cut our bonuses by more than half. Besides we have to make room for the few guys from the other company that are staying on."

"The few guys?" I asked. "I thought most of their employees would stay on?"

"No," replied my twin. "Why would they? We're transferring all operations to our facilities. We need to keep a few of their guys on for the transition, but most of them will go."

I was shocked. A little bit by the layoffs, but mostly by the fact that the other Daniel didn't care. From the moment I'd met my parallel I'd envied his confidence and self assurance, but now I could see that he lacked all empathy and sympathy. He simply didn't care about other people.

And, suddenly, I was glad I wasn't him.

  I ran into myself the other day at the airport, it had been 30 plus years since we parted and, even though we were the same age, my other self seemed older.  Less hair, slightly bigger gut, and when my other self smiled, it never seemed to reach the eyes.  We both had time before our flight so we decided to grab a beer and catch up a bit, compare notes to see where life had taken us. 

He seemed the lucky one, high school football, finished college in 5 years and gotten his MBA, had made VP in his firm and had the required wife, two kids, house with mortgage, money in the bank and vacations on the Cape.  Had made two trips to Europe, once to Paris, once to Rome and was headed to a conference somewhere in Texas.  He ordered a Bud Light, I ordered one of the local IPA's.  As we talked I noticed his eyes never seemed able to meet mine, we finished and went our separate ways, my other self to his conference in Texas but I was headed to Burning Man, something I thought you should do at least once.  As I watched my other self go all I could do was wonder if he had ever really lived.