Curved Light Bends the Rules

Recently, I asked to be shown my new form.

I closed my eyes and saw a beam of ultra-violet light

zig-zagging through the dark like a neon river.

The river wriggled and squirmed,

snapped into a straight line,

and swerved again.

I Googled ‘curvy light’

and found an article on a physics website entitled

“Curved light bends the rules.”

There was a photo of the curved light—

it looked like someone had turned my neon river

on an angle and sliced it open.

Now it was a pulsing chevron with an infrared core bleeding

into that strange, electric purple.

An arrow.

A pivot.

So that's me, I thought.

A rule bender.

Or maybe just a bender.

The color unnerved me.

It was too bright, migraine bright.

Who could sustain that kind of frequency?

I missed my old form already

and it wasn't even gone yet.

The trouble is, I never actually wanted a new form.

What I want is to be in two places at once.

I want to be the fox with two faces.

I want perpetual motion.

According to the article, curved light's “intense peaks”

have a habit of “veering off in opposite directions.”

I have to laugh—my epiphanies are always so on the nose.