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Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Rejects flood the cabin and spaces between my lungs
These cotton candy cookouts have taken to the skies and
Tattered treads simmer in the summer streets ahead

Arbitrary animals fall in endless waves
One after another
Clouding distinctions between land and water

Rubber loses grip
Foundations slip

I hold on tight
And wait for change

Admittedly
I am a synesthete imposter
But tonight I can taste the city lights and
Their salty crunch is as real to me as the chlorine sting
Of the moment I first realized
I've always known how to swim
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/sunshowers
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
He thought for a moment that he might be drowning
But he loved the feeling (I am ever changing)
And she knew he would live for the progression

A common series of notes dragged him under, his vision
Flooded by dark blue spirals, words
Like strands of dripping yarn (I am ever changing)
And he knew she could see them too

They built a home just inside and forged
A memory, a shared vision (I am ever changing)
That formed a tight-knit cloak of protection
From the world

Years passed and they each grew
Closer to the words (I am ever changing)
Yet further from the meaning, unraveling

He wanted to say (I am ever changing)
That he could relate and empathize
And that he knew what it meant to be ever changing
To feel within the oxygen flush of every pulse
That nothing in this world was immune to change
And that it didn't matter, the words--
They never mattered

And how could she not see (I am ever changing)
That the color of this clover was never
The dampened celadon hue of once new love
But rather the soft saffron whisper (I am ever changing)
Of the morning sun? But he knew
She wouldn't understand the question

It took some time to realize
That time has a tendency (I am ever changing)
To spread out like a mushroom cloud and fall
On a quiet Tuesday afternoon like any other
As he barely recalls which notes to play
And the forgotten words trail off
(I am...)
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/ever-changing
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Perhaps I was too anxious
Or too overly ambitious
To become the amber bedrock
Of her vert ontogeny

And for that---
Well, I'm not sorry

But I do empathize

And I did reluctantly accept
This recurring role of
Achromatized apparition

A character deftly commingled
With the unfocused backdrop of
Her callow vista and your
Chimeric vision

Distanced
Marginalized

Even forgotten

And yet
Still present

A mutation in the code

A defiantly epigenetic zero
In each infinite strain
Of blinking ones
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/epigenetic
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
He was
A fallen star
Ever spinning
A hidden halo of
Hawking radiation

He dragged her in
Kicking and screaming

Swallowed her fire and spat out
The ash, now stripped of all color

Into a world not unlike the one he'd stolen her from

Her particles
Now formless
Drifted without purpose

A monochromatic diffusion of her quondam existence

The sepia shade of her filter facade
Barely deflected the stupid questions
She'd never have the answers to

But she knew what to do

She knew how to drift and spread herself
Across this rock of coruscating life

With a thinness nothing short of impressive

Like a flattened chameleon
Hidden in the midst of
A bustling city sidewalk
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/monochromatic
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Sometimes
She would feel detached but
Not from this reality or family or friends
It was more of an out-of-body experience
Or maybe a kind of possession
Where neither party is wholly host nor parasite

Sometimes it worried her

On this particular night
When she looked in the mirror
What she found gazing back was
Hardly recognizable and
What familiarity did exist
Was only of feature
Not of the expression that
Lately always seemed to catch her
A little off guard

What's your deal anyway?

She half-expected a verbal response but
What she got was a hint of a spark and
An upward turn at the corner of the mouth

Expression faded
Head slightly tilted
She continued to stare and
Slowly lose herself
Within the deepening void of
Dimensional distortion

When suddenly
Gaze became glare
Eyes narrowed and flared
A blur rippled past
A chill curled at the base of her spine and
Sprung up through her body and
Into her lungs

It stopped there
Expanded there and held
Her breath hostage

Eyes locked
Face white
Skin cold

And then she cracked and
They both laughed
And turned away
And vanished
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/twin
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
They're all so busy
So desperate
To spread
To create
To infect
To shine
To meet
To drink
To call
To lie

I just want time
To stop
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Up and out
Through tinted pane
Exhausted and drawn
To the crimson moon
Raw and impassioned
***** and enflamed
Like good conversation
From the night before
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Sitting idly at my piano in the
Corner of this dimly lit room

Such a saturated space

Filled with the exhausted breaths
Of a thousand wasted moments

A sliver of the setting sun

Dives headlong through the open
Window and off a bed rarely made

It lands in gentle, brilliant resolve
Wearily along the yellowed wall beside me

Fingers on faux ivory, cold and comforting

Keys that sing the subtle soundtrack of an unrefined feature
The culmination of my disconcerted reminiscence

Tension, release, tension, release

Imaginary hammers go up and down
They push and pull on digital strings

And exhale through the atmosphere
A kaleidoscope of blue and yellow

Flooding my consciousness, blending seamlessly
With the gleeful screaming of children in the distance
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/mike-rollain/synesthesia
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
When it comes along
It falls like rain
And you drink it up
And it saturates
Every cell
Of every pore
Until your soul's had its fill

When it's true
It falls like Georgia rain
And when it falls
It pours
And floods
And if you're not on higher ground
Well, you'd better learn to swim

But most days
It falls like Florida sunshowers
Isolated and sudden and
All at once
Blinding you and
Soaking you and
Deserting you
In broad daylight
Mike Rollain Apr 2016
Beauty does not live
Within the discordance of
Augmented or diminished or the
Harmonic perfection of
Major or minor

It flourishes instead in the
Infinite space between
Dissonance and
Resolve
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