At this time, deep in the delves of romance, heartbreak, missed connections, empathy- or the lack thereof, riddled tales of references to a time before me, and disillusionment; I find myself grazing in this onslaught of emotion.
I don’t understand what it took to reach this moment.
One distant memory of an otherwise beautiful day and even more verbose beautiful night- I seem to have lost sight of that elongated episode of which I felt found.
I flipped through the pages, I annotated, I even smiled when you smiled back at me.
Neither of us participate in that field of work.
Neither of us able to say what the heart or brain or whatever dumbfounding organ that is responsible for the frequency in which we wholeheartedly relate but have nothing to say.
Silence.
I find that comfortable with you.
While it speaks volumes, I feel I consistently make myself the fool.
Ordain these promises, promises of change.
Instead I’m left all the same.
Not better off.
Not entitled to whatever I thought I was seeking.
Perhaps I’m just craving attention as I push you further away from my gaze.
Yet, you still watch closely as I dictate the words that cannot reach you.
Keys made for communication, but my mouth seems to fumble.
My desperation in desecration, and you say I just don’t believe in myself.
I made it easier and I believed in you instead.
Actions over words, but I crave your words beyond belief.
If I do not hear it, there was no exchange.
If you’re around, we’re just bumming around in the art of diddling.
I want you to say something, say anything.
I check the energy and adjust the frequency, and I’m afraid that I’ve made him as low as I feel but cannot project.
Your eyes are on me but I am not looking at you.
Hard at work for any fucking sigh of relief.
You say you’re proud of me, and I’m left bleak.
Why can I not trust a single word you’ve said?
But here we are, participating in the only doctrine that ever gave us hope for nourishment of the soul.
I just say, you did it better than me.
You are remembered, I will not be.
Sidekick to ascertain, no one to know my name.
But you do.
At least the one you gave me, and the one I gave you.
Neverending pages that post like scripture to me in that language of love.
I didn’t know you were capable of that.
I didn’t know either of us were capable of that.
You’re not angry now, you’re sad.
I’m disheartened and angered by myself.
It has nothing to do with you.
And you’ll say it, I think it does, I think I do.
There’s dismay in the air and I am the effect that projects.
Why can’t I be you?
And you’ll say it’s because I don’t want to see you so blue.
You look better in green or black.
Green is when I love you, black is for the spirit.
And I’ll say I’ll wear nothing then if it suits you, I don’t want to leave any impression or influence as to how you fucking think of me.
And unfortunately, you said you’d love me for that too. Perhaps even more than a green suit or gown.
Now I’m angered, but aroused.
Complexities, undefined.
Why won’t you let me frown?
And you’ll say, am I really such a bad person for not wanting to see that? Have my gaze at your discretion, to leave brokenhearted?
And I’ll say suppose, I suppose that does not make you a bad person. But a stupid one.
Now I’ve made you laugh.
I know you laugh with me, not at me, and not at yourself.
Why’d you say honey, oh you know me so well.
Better than anyone, anyone I’ve known before.
I think now, you should shut the door.
You’re my only companion, the only one I seek.
When I am with you I feel I’m cheating myself, I feel overcome with greed.
I want to hide you away and leave you all for myself.
But you say there is no other life, I was dead, there was no head in which to introspect,
There was nothing before you, and nothing after you, you are my present.
I wish I could leave it,at that.
Instead I announce, this is a motherfucking investigation now, sir!
And now jokingly you ask if you’re under arrest.
And I’ll respond, oh no, I don’t have any authority for that field,
But I have my fingers pointed at your head.
And it starts again.
Our silly little dance of companionship.
Our little secrets of the world.
No one knows you are with I, and I feel I am with the lord.
If I were to admit that to you, I know you’d launch your own investigation into whatever rare, undignified complex I’ve been diagnosed to attest to such a feeling.
And I’ll correct you, again.
Sir, it’s complexes, not complex to imply it is plural.
Even fucking better, you respond.
I love a girl with spice, I love a girl that can run.
Then I say the only running I do is of the streets. You see sir, I am the letter g.
He knows nothing of that.
He doesn’t understand.
But he’s picking up what I’m putting down.
At least I made him smile.
And all is well again, too profound for either of us to admit the problems at hand.
The problems with ourselves are the fuel for the language of our love.
He cannot leave me, and I cannot leave it.
It? It? You’re calling me it?
He’s calling me names now.
He always preferred being nameless.
I always found a new one or redesigned the rhyme.
At least you know me well, he has replied at this present moment.
Then he goes I didn’t say that! You’re making shit up.
I told him I fill in the blanks, so they don’t cut.
We do not participate in the words of absolutes.
We only allude, never straight-faced.
This is my heart. This is my grace.
My mirror image.
We’re pretty cracked.
Now whatever psychic telepathy I’ve trained myself in for dismal discourse of enlightenment, tells me he’s happy now.
He has responded firmly, I am happy now. How did you know?
Coyly I go, I can read minds, this is no no no joke.
And we laugh, and he holds me a little tighter.
Wraps his legs around mine, and my brain turns to splatter.
That’s pretty dark of you to say, he has announced.
I retort, you want it that way.
This is all so stupid don’t you think, he goes.
If you are the poet, I am the rose you brought to the table to present your identity. Pigmented in theory, with thorny sides, but I’ll fade like dust and crumble if you leave me behind, for I am not shelf stable, only in passing, maybe for a week. Whether you bought in a store, or you bought it in the street.
He thinks I’m more like a perennial, with roots down to the bedrock of the earth, but climbing up trellises, so high in the sky, there should be a tall tale made of you now… and I’ll be the guy to write it. But I’ll only refer to you as a perennial because you come back for a season, then treat me to treason, broke the treaty we made long, long, ago, kick me out even in the snow, then get concerned if I’m cold and lay on me like a log gazing into my eyes, with defined commentary, you are not dignified, and you portray that I am and I have to ask if those eyes are filled with sand now, because you are the light of my shining days, and I’m just the shadowy silhouette following you, and you say I’m self made.
It’s an illusion, baby.
And I’ll say, you’re more like the glimmer before finding an oasis.
We’re in a fugue now. This is our debate. Our mockery of vulnerability. It is now a date.
This solution has stood the test of time, for us.
We rip off each other’s rhythms and themes.
Invite each other to syncopate the beats.
There is real meaning. We didn’t intend it.
He’s a professional, I’m an apprentice.
He doesn’t believe that.
He says it because I never let my work shine to the light of days.
And I’ll tell him, if you are my sunshine as well, I need you in my gaze. If you find yourself casted in the cold, I’ll still follow your way. I always do.
I may read in the dark, but I write in the light.
This is why I need you in my life.
My mirror twin, my fantasy redeemed, the star in my sky, the air that I breathe, the mud my tires get stuck in whenever I come see you, you are the reason that the sky is blue, and I like you in green because you taught me about chakras, energy wheels I enlightened, negativity I digest, if you think I am better, you are simply the best.
He can be so sweet sometimes.
If we are like a battery, and your car needs a charge, you give me positivity, I’ll rebuke you with flame, show the negative side, just so you can up your game.
At least you get paid, while I live in the shadows.
He says I’ve been doing this longer, I just got lucky you see. You gave me a muse and I sold out cheap.
Yeah I read his works, where the fuck are my royalties?
Quoted with no quotes, not even a dedication, so I’ll spare you once more, I’ll grind your ass to the floor if you really want a muse, an inspiration. This dogma of professional, this dogma of well acquainted. If you are the dogma, I am the doctrine. I don’t consider you any bit a partisan.
So we’re arguing now?
I reply yes.
I’ve got him dumbfounded. I’m waiting on the response. His gears are tinkering and toying while I’m typing away. He’s watching me and I have him swayed.
Oh really?
Yes, really.
He said put, he says “air quotation marks,” so I am quoted, but I’ll leave it anonymously, “Well, consider this a dime in drop of the account. I’ll pay you back one day. My dollar is spent. I’ve got to hit the hay. But instead, I’m left with a beautiful person; (semicolon, not colon, that is right, my dear) (go on)(do you put a colon there?) (I’m not really sure, but anyways) (fuck I lost my train of thought) moving on, (no parenthesis) and (make sure to put and) ((double parentheses as he requested) I’m waiting…) ((dot dot dot) you forgot the commas)) (oh shit that’s the right word, you’re right, oh my god I’m so sleep deprived, that’s a comma not a colon. What dimension am I in right now, dear lord) oh I’ve got it, now no parenthesis, following the parentheses of the double parenthesis)) and that’s why you’re full of shit. You misconceptualized a colon for a comma, so working It. That’s right? That’s what you referred to me earlier as? It? Not he? That’s fine with me. As long as I’m anything of existence to you, I won’t be left feeling so blue. And you know you’re every shade right? From midnight to the sky, I’ve seen you show your colors true. Divine by insight, you’ve mistaken the fool. You always refer to yourself as one. Why do you say that? Oh that’s right, because you’re a witchy bitch that likes to play with cards. But you seem to have me stark. So I admit, that yes, I have stolen some of your work. Dilly-dallying away, writing scribbles and not quotations, you’re correct, every motherfucking encounter I have with you day to day, and I fucking stole it, because I love what you have to say.”
For that, I’ll stay mute motherfucker.
I retort.
He says, that’s fine by me, that’s okay. You have your ways of communication, don’t you see? You already spelled that out earlier with your writings of your problems with me. I can pick up the clues, use the context you so defiantly hold onto and cherish, but oh right! With a grain of salt. That’s what you always say. If I stole your rights, I’m just following your way. You use old phrases and sayings, made much before your time. And you’ll say you made it up, you’re oh so original, just because someone said you were anachronistic in the 8th grade.
That’s a low fucking blow, I reply. You know it’s a good story. It was sweet.
And now he says (parenthesis, make sure to put and now he says, or said, whatever you wish to use) just like that song you’ve made me get used to because you fucking play it ten thousand times a day, and belt it, like those thorns you’ve got on if you are the rose, are striking your skin, and you ravish me in prose, and belt away the songs, and choose not to type away for not only a day but rather 3 weeks, I thought you were starting something new, being a creative to escape your field of blue, but instead I have to lay with you every day, again only for a season before you treat me to treason (and), and I’ll listen anyways because I love how you sing, as if you made the song yourself, and you constructed the themes, and I love your playlists, and how you construct, I love your line up of ques, and I’m just making a buck. I hardly put my soul into my work, and I don’t do it without you. And every time I’m thinking of you, I have nothing to say, I have nothing to write, unless you were in my day. And if you are not present, I have to look back, weave around the corners, like a scarab beetle pushing his shit around in the darkest of days, through the desert, and above the dunes, towards the mountains, clicking his heels, waiting for the earliest spring, a sensation of rain. (period) Furthermore, just to attend to my sights of you, my only and holy muse. If I were to wish for rain, I’d sit there waiting, waiting for anything, waiting for your text, see if you read any of mine, see if you wished me for the best, and I’ll pray again for rain, only to say, can I come over, and you indebtedly into the night cover me with your spray, in my paradise found, not lost.
Damn, that was good.
See, I’ve made you happy again.
You’re a sappy ass hopeless romantic.
Do you think we should go to bed?
Only if it’s made.
(That is the end?) (Yeah, that’s the end.)
(Also, you’re a coward for rhyming so much.)
(You listen to how much rap, just to hit me with that?)
(Noted.)
(I’m still better than you.)
(At least I get paid.)
(Maybe one day, I’ll make just the same. Or even better. Hopefully, one day.)
(Time for bed, honey.)
(Time for bed.)
(I love you.)
(I love you.)
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