Rosa Saba - 2
a love that didn't love back ☊a love that tried to lo
ve back (hard) but failed, stepped on by experience dragged away by abandoned words taking their revenge (softly, slowly) a love that began like the crash of drums into a song that went on with a bridge spanning miles and a chorus just bright enough to make me believe (hard) this love could love us back, and stay past the end of the show, through the slow shuffle of a drunken crowd and i'd take your hand (naturally) and lead you home (steadily) and show you my mind (carefully) but this love recoiled (fearfully) and did not love again bus ridethe unbalanced couple
perched, one animated and the other just a sketch barely listening he who turns the wheel, winds the headlights through twisted streets, tries to greet them all but fails with some, only turning his eyes forward with a sigh and driving on the man there, at the front half-chuckling, half-crying maybe at the music in his ears or maybe at the knives in his stomach hands clutching each other, twisting forearms pressed into that place scuffed shoes tapping out the rhythm of addiction into the floor of the bus, always dirty with the secrets people drop on their way to the back where a girl sits, eyes half-shut but ears open feeling the tension, examining the moments that pass, slow and fast before she pulls the cord, steps down and exits at last i cannotshy stutter of a thought
scurrying across rough rock and diving headfirst into cold white water so as not to be heard, unlike the wilted sigh from pinched lips that draws eye contact then breaks it like waves upon those stones syllables soft and jumping through valleys, over jagged mountains just to reach ears clouded with assumptions and a failing effort to tune it all out skinny fingers gripping a skull through wild, upset hair hands coming to rest uneasily within each other, still shaking from the strain or maybe it's the cold that cuts edges into my shoulders, ties the laces tighter across my back pinching me into place as i twist inside looking away a thousand times, and trying but i cannot unwind, i cannot open myself to you frostbiteapril cut into the frozen city
with long fingernail scratches of running water and suddenly brown gardens the air fell heavy onto the eaves of houses eager to open their doors i stepped out and spoke into a space filled with spring guess i was just trying to hurry things along trying to warm the air trying to clear the path trying to make some sense of this transition the dragging pace at which winter melted away i stepped out, leaned forward and spoke too soon because the mercury sank back into the glass rain became needles, trees frosted thread threatening to sew winter back into the sky and the air retreated into a dull but biting winter chill as if afraid of my open chest displaying december's frostbite and january's cold words and i apologized silently to the city and myself for thinking winter could be defeated so easily self doubt, a nightly ritual
i’m here again, inches away
from the surface of the bathroom mirror at an unhealthy angle twisting my vision back and forth frowning, smiling, frowning again watching craters turn back into pores as i move away then back again scrutinizing each and every hair, every line every possible sign that i might be human the bathroom mirror has me convinced that i am and as i turn my head the other way trying to see if my profile is any better than it was yesterday i can’t help but wonder after seeing myself up close how it is that you could stand to kiss me but then again i guess your eyes are closed |
Spillice before they even hit the ground, words spill
forwards onto dark pavement, and backwards into my shallow shadow down into winter ground, and warmly into my frozen palms, shoved neatly into empty pockets, empty letters forming words spilling out into dirty snow drowning meaning, covering sound, forcing feeling to retreat, words spill meaningless, ice before they even make their mark beautiful, maybe but silent Something Silentthat
empty/heavy feeling a walking oxymoron moron the little voice says for even trying morning feels choking, grainy afternoon is soft and sinking evening drags on, kicking up the day's dust night is calm but the mind still paces and morning comes again words are hard to chew thoughts are slow and weary like two tired and dirty feet that must keep walking I must keep walking, breathing seeming fine through seething teeth lines buried in the sand between my brows are telling something silent that empty/heavy feeling the choicesnow hardens,
bones snap under our feet as we struggle through the white, packed streets it falls softly, but with a sort of insistence like a misplaced love, an overbearing figure blanketing the ground as if to say this is what is best trust me and the softness becomes hardness becomes difficulty as cars spin and stick skin freezes and visibility shrinks perhaps the damage is unseen, not recognizable in each snowflake, but i wish you could see the final effect as a city is shut down by this well-meaning powder and we are split open by this well-meaning love of yours, misplaced, misdirected this is not your puzzle to finish not your picture to paint not your city to burden not your choice to make in controlthe wind has lessened its grip on this house, and now
with the air settling 'round the eaves and twirling the leaves from the trees lazily down to the ground, i have been released, hair pulled back from my face and eyes closed as i stretch across the furniture and breathing steady, i am in control the sun has kickstarted summer with a sudden shower of light, followed by wayward, anxious raindrops that refuse to hit hard instead burying themselves in my collarbone and sinking into my skin like grey patches that melt away the sun's warmth, and today i was nothing but cold, and yet warm when i smiled at the sky and brought out my umbrella, knowing i am in control your hand has lengthened the lines that extend from my eyes, those pathways of expired smiles that left their mark as your fingers wipe rain from my cheeks as if it mattered to you (ever so much) that they stayed dry, and your palm may be damp with honesty now but you press it to mine and it's shared, and the knowledge that the seasons no longer matter is there, because warm and cold don't mean anything with this kind of control nine lineslyrics sharp and mind warm, like wax
waiting for words to press themselves deep into skin ready for something other than silence music fading into the shuffle of thoughts and the creases between shaking fingers barely held steady by each other, by tired palms ragged nails biting skin, trying to soften the blow of the realization that even pieces of poetry nine lines long are unable to support this feeling nine more linessomething about the words i've spilt
forwards onto the concrete, covered by snow that no longer reminds me of time past, but now just reminds me of the time i have left of warm things, quiet music and cold air softer words than i have used in a very long time and suddenly, nine lines is enough to support this feeling, because this feeling flies on its own, and i am tagging along |