Puzzled

People are puzzles.

Dump the pieces out of the box

Look for the edges

Prop up the box somewhere nearby so you can see the shape this particular human takes.

But pieces stick to your forearm as you puzz.

Others get bumped off the table and the dog eats them.

Then you look at the box and the picture has changed and some of the pieces on the table don’t have any color on them at all, no matter how many times you flip them over.

But keep puzzling.

Keep puzzling.

Some of the edges you’ve assembled

Spontaneously detach themselves

And there are some pieces that are too big to fit with the scale of the puzzle

Some are too small.

The box, momentarily with the photo on it, shows it’s a thousand-piece puzzle

But there are only 496 on the table.

And it doesn’t matter because the picture fades again as you look at it.

And what you thought was going to be a pleasant picture

Distorts and beautifies as you assemble more pieces

The puzzle is missing pieces

It has holes in it.

Some of the pieces are from different puzzles of different sizes

But you still have to put them together

And hope you don’t mix up your pieces with the pieces of the puzzle the person next to you at the table is assembling.

The dog coughs up the piece it swallowed and it’s a mess, but you pick it up anyway.

Your memories of the image on the box fade and twist

Sometimes you invent new facets, or find forgotten facets that fell on the floor or were swept up by another puzzler and rejected for their puzzle because it doesn’t fit.

Sometimes they fit and the puzzler who got it won’t surrender the piece you need, so you use one of theirs.

It might fit.

You might have to jam it in there.

And the puzzle is never finished.

Just like people.