Feb 2013
We met in the lost and found & forgot what we were looking for.
We all had a familiar tone of panic laced inside our voices &
you can find us leaning against hand rails in the winter,
blowing a thick layer of smoke over that still, Summit air.
We thought more than we spoke,
like there were tsunamis behind our ribs
that only splashed gently into rivers on the way up
& trickled from our mouths in pathetic streams when we forced them out.
We liked music that screamed because it saved us from having to.
We hid our truths in song lyrics
& swallowed down our problems with ten dollar bottles of ***** in my basement.
I could always see them fidgeting in their own ways.
They say that your hands tell your story.
Before them I never knew how true that could be.
It was like this dysfunctional song that started with a melody and then randomly spilled out all over everything. I watched as they would tap their feet like they were following some unspoken beat, tracing the tips of their fingers over the seams of their pants like they were filling an imaginary painting with careful strokes of invisible hues, drumming their fists against the coffee table & changing fictional chords with their thumbs into the palms of their hands. She was always staring at her tattoos like they were brand new; like they weren’t a part of her; like someone snuck into her bedroom while she slept and used her body as their canvas.
I never really fell asleep with them beside me.
I’d rest lightly with my bedroom lights on just as the sun came up over the skyline.
I was lucid dreaming of warmer places & writing poems on my forearm
when we decided to go for breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe.
Menthol feels cool like mint in your lungs.
Coffee stays warm even as it passes through your chest.
Today, I emptied my skull into a journal.
When I felt my pen hit the last page,
I burned the entire book with a lighter someone left on my dresser
& watched it crumble over the floor beneath my feet.
We just want to run away, but we have no where to go.
“Maybe once we graduate” he thought out loud with my calves over his thighs on his living room floor, but the world doesn’t open wider as you grow older. It closes down around you; it fastens you tightly to the reality of your limits. This chapter of our lives won’t vanish like the dust our tires kick up behind us on a dirt road. Our problems won’t blow away like cigarettes tossed out the window on the freeway. We will wake up the day after graduation & we won’t have anywhere to go.
We’re all held back by different demons.
She doesn’t have the money to get there
& he doesn’t have the grades,
I have no ambition
& we’re all a little unsafe.
So we’ll surrender to our fate
& come sit down beside each other as the summer sun swallows this bitter air.
We’ll dig our naked toes into the green grass that surrounds us
& drink beer under bridges, because nothing’s changed.
I’ve been running for years but I look around & I’m still at the starting line.
We’re running this race in dozens. We can always find each other here,
and we’ll count our sins in the thousands
until they bless our bodies & bury our bones in the dirt.
We all had a familiar tone of panic laced inside our voices &
you can find us leaning against hand rails in the winter,
blowing a thick layer of smoke over that still, Summit air.
We thought more than we spoke,
like there were tsunamis behind our ribs
that only splashed gently into rivers on the way up
& trickled from our mouths in pathetic streams when we forced them out.
We liked music that screamed because it saved us from having to.
We hid our truths in song lyrics
& swallowed down our problems with ten dollar bottles of ***** in my basement.
I could always see them fidgeting in their own ways.
They say that your hands tell your story.
Before them I never knew how true that could be.
It was like this dysfunctional song that started with a melody and then randomly spilled out all over everything. I watched as they would tap their feet like they were following some unspoken beat, tracing the tips of their fingers over the seams of their pants like they were filling an imaginary painting with careful strokes of invisible hues, drumming their fists against the coffee table & changing fictional chords with their thumbs into the palms of their hands. She was always staring at her tattoos like they were brand new; like they weren’t a part of her; like someone snuck into her bedroom while she slept and used her body as their canvas.
I never really fell asleep with them beside me.
I’d rest lightly with my bedroom lights on just as the sun came up over the skyline.
I was lucid dreaming of warmer places & writing poems on my forearm
when we decided to go for breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe.
Menthol feels cool like mint in your lungs.
Coffee stays warm even as it passes through your chest.
Today, I emptied my skull into a journal.
When I felt my pen hit the last page,
I burned the entire book with a lighter someone left on my dresser
& watched it crumble over the floor beneath my feet.
We just want to run away, but we have no where to go.
“Maybe once we graduate” he thought out loud with my calves over his thighs on his living room floor, but the world doesn’t open wider as you grow older. It closes down around you; it fastens you tightly to the reality of your limits. This chapter of our lives won’t vanish like the dust our tires kick up behind us on a dirt road. Our problems won’t blow away like cigarettes tossed out the window on the freeway. We will wake up the day after graduation & we won’t have anywhere to go.
We’re all held back by different demons.
She doesn’t have the money to get there
& he doesn’t have the grades,
I have no ambition
& we’re all a little unsafe.
So we’ll surrender to our fate
& come sit down beside each other as the summer sun swallows this bitter air.
We’ll dig our naked toes into the green grass that surrounds us
& drink beer under bridges, because nothing’s changed.
I’ve been running for years but I look around & I’m still at the starting line.
We’re running this race in dozens. We can always find each other here,
and we’ll count our sins in the thousands
until they bless our bodies & bury our bones in the dirt.
