pokemon card bible

i did not know how
to play the pokemon card game 
& i wouldn't have had anyone to battle with 
if i did. instead, we kept them in binders 
in the attic. dust on the shelves.
my pilgrimages up 
soft green carpet stairs.
i would sit & lay the cards out in rows
pretending we were standing
in a desert together.
then, later, inside a flea market 
& i would go talk to the bin 
of card board monsters. i didn't have
many friends. the ones i did 
had hair ties & knew how
to wear perfume already. i always felt like
i was in a play where everyone else had the script 
but me. i wanted to be told to run away 
like the characters in pokemon.
cracks formed in the asphalt 
& from them grew all my favorite weeds:
dandelions & ragged hands.
i asked myself if i
could be trained. 
as a ten year old
i was prone to fire-types.
whatever could set our dead dry lawn a blaze.
but i didn't want my pokemon to evolve.
preferred charmander to charizard.
i wanted to monsters small 
& managable. 
counting my cards at night.
savoring holographic edges 
& shimmering frames. i was convinced
i could stare long enough
to coax the creatures 
from their world into ours.
could wake up the next morning
& pack a bag & walk into 
a sherbert horizon. butterflies
drank greedily from our windows.
i was not a pokemon trainer
but i did have the cards
to return to. opening the binders
& deciding which i wanted 
to pull free from their 
plastic sheaths.