The Walrus Who Forgot How to Be Serious

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I am the egg man, but not the heroic kind. I’m the kind that rolls off the kitchen counter and cracks on the linoleum with a polite apology. I’m the kind that wonders if the yolk was ever meant to stay together or if breaking was the real job all along. People walk past me with grocery bags full of certainty. They never drop anything. They never look like they’re going to fall apart on a Tuesday afternoon. I envy that. I envy their careful hands.

They are the egg men too, though they pretend they’re not. They wear ties and uniforms, poems stitched behind their ribs where nobody can hear them but the rattling of their own breathing. Mister City Policeman sits there like a parade float of authority, polished to a quiet shine. But I can see the shell in him. I can hear it crack every time a bird lands on a wire or a child laughs too honestly. He is an egg pretending to be a brick.

Pretty little policemen in a row, pretending to be statues so the wind won’t blow their feelings over. See how they fly, Lucy out there skywriting rumors across the air like delicate graffiti. Everyone chases it. Nobody catches anything but the idea of catching. The world runs like a broken toy someone keeps winding up because it still makes a beautiful noise.

Sometimes I think tears are just gravity’s favorite hobby. I cry the way rain falls on a city no one is finished building yet. It’s embarrassing, sure, but even the walrus cries, somewhere behind his whiskers and the moonlight. I am the walrus in the way a chair is sometimes a boat if you sit in it long enough and imagine water. Goo goo g’joob is not a spell or a joke; it’s the sound your heart makes when it realizes it has been wearing a ridiculous costume all these years.

The egg men march. The egg men smile. The egg men crack in secret. I sit here and watch, trying not to break too loudly. If we’re honest, someday we will all spill a little. Someday we will all run like yellow rivers toward whatever kitchen sink of existence is waiting.

Until then, I remain split and shining in the light, ridiculous and sincere, crying quietly for everything fragile that pretends it isn’t.