it's four pm sunday afternoon
and in an unforeseen
turn of events
i'm awake
guess i've slept so long
i couldn't nap away
one more
afternoon
remembering how on friday
waiting at the bus stop
a library employee
walked up to me and said
"would you
like a poem?"
and handed me
a note card
and on it was printed
a poem
and a reminder that
april was national poetry month
it reminded me
what i've known for far too long
that there are words inside me
clawing tooth and nail
trying to get out
and i have to let them
so today it's
sunday afternoon
and i'm thinking about how
sunday afternooons
aren't what
they used to be
they started out in
the backseat of a
blue dodge van
crammed between my brothers
npr on the radio
i hated car talk
but loved to hear the way
my dad laughed at what
couldn’t possibly be jokes
not since it wasn’t funny
but after car talk came
prairie home companion
garrison keillor's gravel
serenade of life in
lake woebegone
static bluegrass
the drama
of guy noir
the hilarity of
tom keith and fred newman
playing ping pong with
airplanes dive bombing overhead
winding up around the lake
through the corn fields
until we got
to grandma’s house
afternoons turned into
evenings and i would fall
asleep in the backseat
on the way home
staring upside down out the
window at the incandescent
orange street lights
barely bright enough to cast more
light than the stars
treetops dissolving into the dark sky
i always thought it was
fascinating how it everything
looked different from that
angle in the dark
sunday afternoons turned into
dashing around
the church grounds
unattended
picking up deer bones in the
back lot and throwing them
into the pond
eventually removing screens
from windows and
climbing out onto the roof
we got older
turned into teenagers
lazy summer days
a memory so
soaked in sugary
pink lemonade mix
i can't help but scrape my teeth
remembering the taste of
citric acid and innocence
how we thought we were
so grown up
but i'd give anything to be
that kid again
i wish we’d gone
on more trips to the mall
before the shops were dead husks
a fallen ozymandias
to the promise of capitalism
when there were shoe stores
and book stores and a
radio shack and a gertrude hawk
we would spend ages in the
bath and body works
smelling and calculating
how much body spray
we had to buy between ourselves
to get the most out of our coupon
exchanging the bills and bottles
in the food court across from the sears
years and years
before it would become a post
apocalyptic vaccination center of
folding chairs and masked queues
before i lost them
to the split paths
adulthood takes
us all down
i wish i'd known what
i know now
that no matter how bad
it feels in my own head
it's never a death sentence
it will come and go
i wish i’d known
that none of it would last
sunday afternoons
the in-between
washing my hair
while my friends
went with my parents
to church
i don't go to church
don't think i ever will again
even though i wonder
if the sense of community would help
it's sunday afternoon
but it's not how sunday
afternoons used to be
with johnny cash on a loop
as i lost myself in
empty cardboard boxes
straight lines of
dusty wine bottles
shattered pints of
gin on gritty concrete
sunday morning
coming down
but it never felt like
coming down
it felt as close to peace
and quiet as i could get
sunday afternoons
turned to hazy piles of
navy duvet and
dr teals scented sheets
but i can’t do that anymore
i’ve wasted enough time
trying to sleep out
my own thoughts
so i'm trying to
let myself remember
let the words out
one afternoon at a time
something about this
sunday afternoon
feels like how
they used to be
an indigo country playlist
on the tv
all alone
with my herbal tea
the candle burning is
lilac and violet
i'm starting to think
i could find a way to heal
i'm not writing this poem
for it to be good
i'm writing it because if i don't
i might slip down with
the raindrops into the drainage grate
never to be seen again
i have to let my past
wrap itself into my future
or i'll lose the parts of
myself that brought me to here
there’s something about
having the window open
while it rains that tells me
it’s going to be all right
something about how the
library bells still ring
just off the hour
that reminds me
how time passes
how sunday afternoons
have changed
and i’m sure they
will change again soon
and what a relief that is
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023 at 10:12 PM UTC
it's four pm sunday afternoon
and in an unforeseen
turn of events
i'm awake
guess i've slept so long
i couldn't nap away
one more
afternoon
remembering how on friday
waiting at the bus stop
a library employee
walked up to me and said
"would you
like a poem?"
and handed me
a note card
and on it was printed
a poem
and a reminder that
april was national poetry month
it reminded me
what i've known for far too long
that there are words inside me
clawing tooth and nail
trying to get out
and i have to let them
so today it's
sunday afternoon
and i'm thinking about how
sunday afternooons
aren't what
they used to be
they started out in
the backseat of a
blue dodge van
crammed between my brothers
npr on the radio
i hated car talk
but loved to hear the way
my dad laughed at what
couldn’t possibly be jokes
not since it wasn’t funny
but after car talk came
prairie home companion
garrison keillor's gravel
serenade of life in
lake woebegone
static bluegrass
the drama
of guy noir
the hilarity of
tom keith and fred newman
playing ping pong with
airplanes dive bombing overhead
winding up around the lake
through the corn fields
until we got
to grandma’s house
afternoons turned into
evenings and i would fall
asleep in the backseat
on the way home
staring upside down out the
window at the incandescent
orange street lights
barely bright enough to cast more
light than the stars
treetops dissolving into the dark sky
i always thought it was
fascinating how it everything
looked different from that
angle in the dark
sunday afternoons turned into
dashing around
the church grounds
unattended
picking up deer bones in the
back lot and throwing them
into the pond
eventually removing screens
from windows and
climbing out onto the roof
we got older
turned into teenagers
lazy summer days
a memory so
soaked in sugary
pink lemonade mix
i can't help but scrape my teeth
remembering the taste of
citric acid and innocence
how we thought we were
so grown up
but i'd give anything to be
that kid again
i wish we’d gone
on more trips to the mall
before the shops were dead husks
a fallen ozymandias
to the promise of capitalism
when there were shoe stores
and book stores and a
radio shack and a gertrude hawk
we would spend ages in the
bath and body works
smelling and calculating
how much body spray
we had to buy between ourselves
to get the most out of our coupon
exchanging the bills and bottles
in the food court across from the sears
years and years
before it would become a post
apocalyptic vaccination center of
folding chairs and masked queues
before i lost them
to the split paths
adulthood takes
us all down
i wish i'd known what
i know now
that no matter how bad
it feels in my own head
it's never a death sentence
it will come and go
i wish i’d known
that none of it would last
sunday afternoons
the in-between
washing my hair
while my friends
went with my parents
to church
i don't go to church
don't think i ever will again
even though i wonder
if the sense of community would help
it's sunday afternoon
but it's not how sunday
afternoons used to be
with johnny cash on a loop
as i lost myself in
empty cardboard boxes
straight lines of
dusty wine bottles
shattered pints of
gin on gritty concrete
sunday morning
coming down
but it never felt like
coming down
it felt as close to peace
and quiet as i could get
sunday afternoons
turned to hazy piles of
navy duvet and
dr teals scented sheets
but i can’t do that anymore
i’ve wasted enough time
trying to sleep out
my own thoughts
so i'm trying to
let myself remember
let the words out
one afternoon at a time
something about this
sunday afternoon
feels like how
they used to be
an indigo country playlist
on the tv
all alone
with my herbal tea
the candle burning is
lilac and violet
i'm starting to think
i could find a way to heal
i'm not writing this poem
for it to be good
i'm writing it because if i don't
i might slip down with
the raindrops into the drainage grate
never to be seen again
i have to let my past
wrap itself into my future
or i'll lose the parts of
myself that brought me to here
there’s something about
having the window open
while it rains that tells me
it’s going to be all right
something about how the
library bells still ring
just off the hour
that reminds me
how time passes
how sunday afternoons
have changed
and i’m sure they
will change again soon
and what a relief that is
copyright 4/30/23 by b. e. mccomb