—And so the conversation slips
Among novelties and carefully submitted anonymous tips
Through some elevator’s ear-splitting jingle
And then awkward coughs or sighs begin to mingle
And coughs up something like
"You do not know how much they mean to me, my (Whatever).”
Well aren’t you a rarity.
In a world, so dense
Dank wet cold nights
Or Warm Summer Sunsets.
Another human being must have similar qualities
Someone who is cold, and warm. There’s everything.
Diversity in the soul; worldy, or knowledgeable.
One of those who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
This
These
My
Not demise
My eyes
Watch my words
Mine
Coming from my nervous system
Turning to twine and wind
Around and out from the nerves in my spine
Inside my brain a deep, dull rhythm begins
Tapping intro on my skull wearing me thin
Unpredictable but measured changes
Make the silence seem, if possible, truthfully monotone
That is at least one definite "false note."
Admire this monument,
Remain with what’s relevant
This was some broken covenant
But then it was love again
No that’s from way back when.
Correct our watches by the school bell.
Then sit for an hour and drink out of liquor wells.
Now that I can dream of the oleander in bloom
I can smell their sweet pollen in the air in my room
Just like that sweet strand of hair that you twist around your finger
You don’t even know
It could all be (although not) all a show
This whole thing, this life
It’s all in your hands
Survival is simple
Meet it’s demands
Learn how to stand on your hands
And land on your feet
It’s a stammering stam.
(You and your strand of hair put me through the wringer)
You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
Never the less without a god ****** filter
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
As ignorance infiltrates and expectations point the finger
I of course have a smirk plastered on my jaw
And I go on looking at you from across the table
I pretend to unsee the nakedness I once saw.
And again with the premature sunsets,
Somehow almost completely recall
The moments in the past verbatum
And that is how I retrospectively fall
My buried life, and the shallow Canal
One of my wings
And the rest of myself
I feel on the verge of some past dreamt nirvana.
Finding the world all fuzzy and wuzzy and whatnot
And find my ignorant stomach stumbling in knots
My inner voice returns like this pest persistently out-of-tune
Of a broken vocal chord on a post-spring afternoon:
I am always never surely unaware that you understandingly misunderstand
My feelings, always surely realistically that you feel,
I must be invulnerable, you insistently have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have finally figured out your fate’s tallest tale
You can say: at this point I for one, have failed.
What can I say that you say,
Do I--but what do I have, vague shadow
To offer, what will you take from me?
Only the friendship and the unearned empathy
Of a new journey, or the end of an old path
I’ll sit here, I see the fragments of dust settle on the shelves
Making for a subtle aftermath
I’ll hang my hat on your hook:
I’ve never worn prada, I must make amends
I’ve lived all my lifetime
No help from said friends
You will see me any morning in the park
Tying loose ends
Right around the bend.
Sitting on the wooden bench ahead
Reading the sports, and the comic strips
And with a smirk on my face full of laughter and wit
An English major goes upon life’s stage
Some bad on bad got shot on or bled out in the cage
Another collection’s agency has called
I keep my solid, impenetrable expression,
I remain self-possessed, and self in posession,
Except when a tuneless piano, mechanically intravenously
Reiterates some worn-out broken sonnet of a song, old and tired
With the smell of her across the garden
Recalling things that which many others have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
I’m desbelado, eyes cracked, hands wired
The nights swallows me, like it promised before
Except for the sensation at my hips and my hands moving with ease
Owning each step of the stairs the creak of my door
So you’re leaving
But when will you be staying?
But that's a useless question.
Between reality and a dream I stay swaying
You never know anything.
But I have so much to go discover and learn.
My smile took so much elbow grease
Like old school butter to be churned
Maybe you can write to me, or just keep doing this.
Pure. Confidence, flares up for a second;
This is as I signed up for.
I have been wondering lately, It’s been on my nerve’s end
Why we will not continue growing into friends.
Not very ironically
I am smirking internally of course, to write a side note
I have a sly private remark
Suddenly, the expression in a glass is stained
My soul or me stutters.
Whispers, we really are in the dark.
It was common knowledge. You and I. We were the perforated line.
It was sure that the ideas must happen, revolution. America is beautiful.
So closely! I myself can hardly understand. How any extremist swallow their own bull
It must be put in the hands of whatever you think is fate
I will be always, I will write, at any rate.
There is still a chance it is not too late.
I will sit here, without a list of my friends.
Instead my list is a comrade after comrade
And that’s how it ends
Would you lend me your fridge’s magnet puzzle pieces
To somehow visualize my thought
My mind is racing. It’s the revolution I’m chasing.
No stencils or unorganically produced tracings
We’re all bound to die some afternoon,
Mine will be foggy maybe, ending in a tie-dye yellow rose
I will die with ink on my face and a pen in my stiff hand
Half a bowl left of stale rasin bran.
If there’s an afterlife, I will be the protagonist that starts off in denial
Not knowing what to feel through the whole doomsday trial
I’ll actually be debating whether this is ridiculous, raw, or even tactile
With all the time in the world, might sit down a while.
Copyright © Jimena Zavaleta 2011
