Before the days I learned how to
appreciate the word nerd, how it
rolled inside my tongue in cool
crisp diction, I was the young boy
who walked down the crowded
hallways decked in casual collar
shirts and denim blue jeans with
a bookbag behind my back,
my hands holding a stack
of schoolbooks close to my chest,
the silent air surrounding me a
squared wave dragging in suspended
shadows.  I could hear the echoing
consonants sifting in broken space
towards uncharted worlds, murmuring
and dissolving in distant lakes, wide
and insane escapes dazed, scarlet
scraped, shifting behind vile and
vanishing outlines.  I was falling.
I could feel the snatching and
cracking inside my veins, the
looming liquid rises confining
in chamber circles, handcuffed,
shackled, crackled, half an inner
reality poisoned and pounding
in a thin wall of clogged chains.
I was drifting.  I couldn’t begin
to disentangle the words, how
its loud ringing beginning had
no ending, how its rhythm
in slow motion muted
my existence, the name
I was called on various occasions,
wondering if it would
ever end.  Now
as the days fade into each
other, the constant walks
across the cityscape that seeps
into late night gazes at the moon,
I have come to appreciate the sweet
blossoming beauty that defines
my captivating canvas.