3 Reflections of a Person Who is Only Memories Now

I.

​

Taking in heavy gulps of drowned air,

bathed in that Midwest ocean,

shaking hands hold cluttered items of being.

Her smile holds me still,

just long enough to gather myself.

 

Virus: Negative

Tickets: Scanned

Belongings: Examined

 

Up wooden stairs

she ascends dragging me in her wake.

Then we are at the bar, lost in

the Crowd,

the stage,

each other,

this Blues-tinted realm,

building anticipation, for we were

 

ready to go! We munched on greasy

garlic-soaked fries and she smiled

as she dipped them in the Ketchup.

we turned from the black lacking merch

 

just as the music hit! She was pulling

me by the arm. Through the throngs,

songs she showed me blaring,

I'm mesmerized.

I felt 20 again.

It felt wrong.

It felt just right.

It felt like it would be better if he had more songs.

I didn't want that night to end, even as it started.

 

We danced. We held each other.

We sang songs.

She knew more words than me.

I loved her passion.

​

I always people-watch at concerts,

building little lives for them,

oblivious to my staring.

Not that night.

Her's was the only story I cared for,

and I was living in it.

Others stared on starry-eyed, shooting daggers.

I only caught glimpses, little stabs.

I was submerged in the happy clang of electric guitars,

the roar of the masses,

holding on to dear life;

 

holding onto her tighter with each minute,

consumed by her singular composure.

She made me happy in spaces

 

where I might pop in and out of focus,

places I don't matter.

 

She mattered and she made me matter.

That's all that mattered as she led me

​

back down the stairs, into the

ceaseless commotion of the city. The contrast,

between the still chaos inside

and

the frenzied order outside,

rattled me more than anything else ever has.

 

Part of me still lingers in that house,

imprinted like a photo, a memory frozen.

It still holds her in my arms.

​

 

II.

​

Mixed signals.

Crossed wires.

Lost in translation.

Lack transition.

Some days,

the message comes through,

Some days,

you stare at me like I'm making smoke signals.

Some days,

there's not a reply at all.

​

You say you're serious about me,

and I'm seriously too much,

and I'm seriously starting to doubt how much I mean to you.

and it's as serious as a heart attack

every time I consider how seriously I wanted you.

I'm seriously about to come apart.

​

You don't want to meet my child,

but you want her to know about you.

You think we move too fast,

but you include me in your dreams.

 

Now you say we are through,

one quiet sentence,

no room for rebuttal.

Back to square one,

those moments before I walked you to our room.

Only nothing new will grow from this dead

patch of dirt.

So, sprinkle my ashes on the plot instead.

​

​

III.

​

Your bruise still lingers on my chest;

it'll be the last; I know.

I'll miss your lips and your tiny bites,

I'll board up the room you lived in,

when you were a resident of my whorehouse heart.

And when I smell your sweet sweat,

drifting from between the heavily nailed boards,

I'll remember dancing in Chicago,

I'll remember being at each other’s feet,

I'll remember watching you move through spaces like an illusion,

and I'll remember how you breathed life back into a corpse,

giving him a little more time in this heavenly hell.