Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
km Dec 2010
I walked down the familiar path and met the crossroads where pavement turns dirt.
I know it well. I can feel it. It is real. I am close. I want to turn.
It seems so simple. I am so close. But I am grabbed and led away.
We don’t have time, I’m told. But I’m so close, I cry.
No time, child, no time. I am led away.
The smell of roasting corn lingers.
The sounds are vivid.
The ache weighs my body down.
I beg and I pull. But I am led away. I look back, it is disappearing.
The smells have gone, the sounds are echos, and the ache intensifies. My bones are burning. I pull. I fail. I am led away. I hurt.
Then; I wake up. I was so close.
The ache lingers as does the low fog outside my early morning window.
May not be printed for other than home use, published or used commercially.
km Dec 2010
I love communication. I love the push and pull,
the darting of eyes, the grins and the smirks.
I love the deepened sound, the quick inhalations,
the hands to face.
Hands to face, hands to your face and back to mine.
Locked eyes, hands in pockets.
My pockets, your pockets.
Your thumb is sticking out. Mine is hidden.
Curled up in a ball. Holding spare change.
Counting as you talk. 1 dollar and 35 cents.
I think.
Maybe that isn’t a dime.
Maybe it’s a penny. Maybe I have 1 dollar and 26 cents.
You keep talking. I keep recounting.
A little boy walks by and does something silly.
I stop listening and laugh.
I look back, apologize.
Sorry, that was cute.
I say something ordinary. You think I’m profound.
I’m not. I’m ordinary. I just like to think. And say things out loud.
To hear my own voice against yours.
Against the wind and the silly boy.
I check my phone for the time. Not a watch.
No one does that anymore. No one owns watches.
I own one, but its battery is dead, its missing a link.
It doesn’t fit on my wrist. My bus is coming. I might miss it.
I better run.
So I say something expected. See you later.
Or, Have a good-day. Or, I hope your whatever goes well.
Because that’s what you say when you’re catching a bus.
So we depart, and I skip down the steps,
like I probably did when I was 7.
Because sometimes I just feel like skipping.
I get a high off the jump.
A nostalgic shot of carelessness.
Then I remember,  I’m in public. Walk normally.
And you’re probably watching me as I stop skipping and start walking – normally.
You’re probably thinking what the hell was that?
You’re probably laughing.
I don’t look back. My bus is here. I argue with the driver.
Someone stole my bus pass sticker. Yes I’m serious.
The carpet cleaners did it. I’m going home in four days.
I’m not paying for a fare.
He lets me on, finally, after taking in a deep breath.
Sometimes I do that to people. Exhaust them.
I had to this time. 1 dollar and 35 cents,
or 1 dollar and 26 cents, won’t cut it.
I have to get home. It’s too far to walk.
I take my seat, and I feel like an outlaw.
I know I’m not one.
I just like the way the word sounds.
Sounds dangerous and romantic.
I hate romance.
No that’s not true. I hate what people expect of romance.
I like what I expect of romance, and it’s not what people expect.
By people I mean people who like romance novels and movies.
They don’t know what love is because they think you can define it.
I’m almost home, on this bus.
I wonder if I should take the back door, to avoid the man I argued with. Or the front, to say thank you, because I mean it.
I didn’t want to have to walk.
Today I decide to be friendlier than usual,
and walk to the front to say a cheerful thank you.
What I really meant was thank you,
for not being a persistent ******-bag.
And he says something typical. Have a good day – or something.
He probably meant: get off my ******* bus. Buy a pass.
Don’t leave your student ID on your dresser,
when carpet cleaners come for the day.
I get it, and I’m sorry. But I needed to come home.
May not be printed for other than home use, published or used commercially.
km Dec 2010
war is an industry
cloaked in big words
whose product
is death
and profit
is image

with a false sense of security
power, and liberty
built in such layers
with so many names
signing so many papers
on matters that they
have no right to sign

that when someone asks
who is responsible
for the schools blown apart
or the rapes of young girls
names slip like water
through the fingers that search

because that one person
was instructed by this
one person
and that one person
was instructed by this
one person

so inevitably you get lost
in the game of name-blaming
and the questions of ethics
are subservient
to the chances of victory
and damage isn’t allowed
to the profit of image

without image you are
no longer the truth
and they are no longer
the wrong
and soon the lines
that separated so clearly
blur one into the other
and it is hard to decipher
who the enemy is

and without this
discernment
between the right
and the wrong
the reasons for fighting
don’t seem so clear
and questions are raised
and voices are heard
and victims are mourned
and colours don’t matter
and neither do prayers

and so those in power
keep these lines straight
with the language of war
to keep out of sight
the responsibility to be had
or the mourning of millions
or the injustice of papers
being signed in corrupt ink

until the public stands up on their own
and erases the lines so rhetorically imposed
and realizes the enemy are not men with dark skin
but obscurity of justice and reason within
the industry of war will continue on raging
through distant lands that are actually close
and the innocent will continue to suffer
and the poor will only get poorer
and in time, the children in this ostracized world
will become bitter and eager
with their own image of evil
and their own language of war.
May not be printed for other than home use, published or used commercially.

— The End —