Kyla Matagi

Issue 16

CITIES BUILT ON CLOUDS

What are clouds made of?
No responsibilities at all,
white when the rest of the sky is blue.
“It’s still raining,” she says.
“What’s a little rain?” I’d say.
Unaware that it’s been raining for days.
Bleak truth drenched me
with my own potential guilt.
“But I got wet too,” she’d reply.

Within moments, it was snowing
so hard we couldn’t build a fire.

I could embrace any preposterous delusion,
crawl on my hands and knees.
If I were someone else, it might be.
But I like to think I’m not sorry at all.
I take comfort in the fact
that from utter nothingness,
nothing ever changes.
The secret to happiness.
I suppose that’s one way to define it.


Source & Method: I crafted this found poem from “Yukon, Ho!” A Calvin and Hobbes Collection by Bill Watterson. I aimed to subvert the text from Calvin’s world of youthful adventures into a bleak and aching struggle of adulthood, pulling out the gloom of the setting to achieve this.


Kyla Matagi earned her Bachelor’s in English from Utah Valley University, during which time her art and writing appeared in the University’s literary journals. She currently lives in San Diego, though not for long. She is always seeking the next adventure.