Tag: addiction

Her Face a Song

Her Face a Song

She came to me. Like she knew that her pain and my guilt were forces meant to be joined together. A magnet, she walked right up to the window and locked eyes with me. She knew the guilt, the shame, that my humanity and hers would conjure up. Years of smokestain in the cracks and folds of her skin, sunken mouth and a pair of lonely brown eyes like the mouth of a tunnel. She was silent but her face sang me a song.

On the return, a moth fluttering in the back-light of a streetlamp, between the fingers of needles, then just over my head. A happen chance glance that changed the entire course of my fluttering mind.

Wants and Needs

Under a dense grey sky, under the gas station canopy, a black girl wonders, sentences collapsing at the edge of her lips. She’s wearing a rain jacket with the hood partially up over the back of her head. She has legs that are like matchsticks, legs that are barely there, waiting to catch fire. She’s holding everything she owns (everything she needs), cantering around in syllables, she yells to the fungus soaked maples, something about want or need. From behind the broken down cars (or nearly broken down) parked on the side of the building a white girl comes out, fiercely walking, full of intention, her short hair in a short tail, shaved on the sides. Her flannel shirt lifts in the drifts and kisses the undersides of her arms. Short shorts so short it’s like she’s wearing legs, flicks her cigarette and walks passed the black girl -with hardly a look, and she thinks something about wants or needs. The gas station remains empty, territory claimed.

Living

Living
with the knife between your teeth
bloodshot eyes 
sweat on the brow
'Here's Johnny' 
type living 
that must be
real living. 
clenched fist
razor blade scrapping
knuckles 
bruised and ragged 
a tireless workshop 
of words 
always going 'round
each other with words
'round each other with fictions
isn't it funny how words 
can stroke
can bury 
Living
real living
you don't even know what real living is
nobody does
itching 
the scratch
temptations' 
callous hands 
busy at work 
-always at work 
and you call yourself 
a liar and you call 
yourself flames 
and you stroke 
and bury 
and stroke and 
bury
until there's no more 
weight left to carry
Wake Up!
you dance with 
last nights hallow 
memories 
of dreams 
putting distances  
between 
you and your loved ones 
trying your damndest 
to live up to someone else's
ideal
  Wake Up!
wriggling 
like a trout 
plashing 
the waters
ripple 
lungs 
balloon
expansive now
the waters rising 
touching 
the tip 
of your nose 
and there's no
where for your feet 
to touch 
Wake Up!
it's 6 o'clock tomorrow morning
time to get up and go to work.

Resistance

Habits are memories in action

Inaction is resistance

Resistance is the sound the wind makes

Rain streaked window pane

When you go

don’t slam the door

when you go

it’s all gone

it seems i’ve got it out for myself

afraid of really livin’

i always make it harder

and when you’re not around

my head gets to spinnin’

habits are memories

in action

inaction is resistance

resistance is the sound

wind makes

When you go

don’t slam the door

when you go

it’s all gone

So sick of this self deception and

inattention we’re living in

mirrors of reflections man

it’s alright,

it’s alright,

it’s all light

it’s all light

Once i get caught up in these shadows

you think i’m missin’

but all i need from you

is to fuckin’ listen

Habits

are memories in action

Inaction is resistance

Resistance is the sound

that wind makes.

When you go

don’t slam the door

when you go

it’s all gone

I’ve got this gene

It’s self defeating

I know I can’t win

Because I always give in.

Habits

are memories in action

Inaction is resistance

Resistance is the sound

that wind makes.

Addiction (A Poem)

Addiction
Replete with silence
mistaken for taken sides
an escape artist
i’ve mastered the illusion of being here

with my hands bound i drown
sinking into a sea of misery
escaping from reality.

seagulls’ echoed cries of agony and
hunger pierce the surface
of this mirrored illusion. refractions of
sparkling lights and distorted fantasies
dance like idyllic reruns on a liquid screen.

filled with conflict and struggle
i look for distractions in actions
-typical American response really-
there’s always something out there,
to make it all better again.

i transform the object into what i need,
simultaneously the object transforms me
again and again.

this sinking does not have a sinking feeling
in the vastness of expanse i close my eyes
it feels like a primordial womb
a viscid mix: sediment and water
walls of feathery pink tissue undulate
purple fingerling tendrils caress me
they are and are not my body

heartbeats and pressure builds
compressing coralline ribs
split fragments pierce lungs
forgotten -what was i escaping?

somewhere in between
reverberations and nothingness,
swallowed in the abyss
where even a thousand buddhas couldn’t
hear my song,

bottomless shadows fill the sea
i writhe
singing back into infinity
this void holds no sound
i’m bound to repetition.