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the superstore line

I wonder what language you were speaking.

Was it pure psycho-babble?

Were the words pure? Were you

reciting the words to a song?

Were you singing?

Could I see your beauty?

 

Were you even cognitive, were you thinking

underneath the muttering, heavy clamor of words

that jail-broke from your mouth and streamed into existence,

flooding the men and woman

carrying bags and carts under the

artificial lights and long lines

 

Did you think that vomit-mumble-speaking all over a single Korean mother

and her young child

was imposing or threatening in anyway?

If you’d have taken a step closer to her I would have had to step in,

but she quietly left her place and dragged her shy looking

boy with her as he stared at the ground-

and we did our best

to turn you into a ghost, clattering pipes in the empty walls-

 

I wonder how many rugs you’ve been swept under.

How many times people have tried and failed to plug up the holes in

your leaky brain.

How many times you’ve tried help yourself.

How many times someone has failed you-

how many times you’ve failed someone else.

How many occasions

exactly like this

people ignored you as you rambled on about nothing in a Superstore like a broken record skipping unpredictable sick scratched torn

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Written by
jonny-bolduc
American
Published
Nov 27, 2014
Lines·Words
29·218
Tags
#illness#mental
Permission

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