Saturday, October 28, 2006

"Hear" Inspired by a wall at Starbucks

Rain was shining on the pavement making the sky and ground blend together in a dark hue. i walked on my keys jingling inaudible melodies from where they hung between my fingertips. my breath escaped my lips in vanishing trails of mist that climbed upward to where the sky should have been. it vanished before it could reach its destination. it was late. i didn't quite know how late it was but it was after the hour that the the bus service between freshman parking and campus had ceased. that didn't matter. i needed the prolonged walk to analyze my thoughts. i had spun them in my head like an eight legged rubix cube. my thoughts seemed to chase each other often with no clear distinction between where one ended and another began. like the vanishing mist of my breath - they were infinite but fleeting. there was comfort in that. my web would accompany me home. it was the best company i could have asked for because all

Her soul to the sad strumming of a six stringed instrument. we didn't hear. isn't it funny how little we hear? sometimes we don't hear things even if we're listening. a little girl reading a book telling her mother she didn't need to be tucked in. please mommy hold me. two scared and glistening blue eyes telling him i loved him enough to let him go. why can't i be enough for you. an empty church with a silent crucifix. why can't God save me. now two words play themselves over and over in my mind. Like this. Like this. they spin like rings around a Rosie but that world already came falling down. my breath goes in and out. beneath my skin oxygen is being given to millions of cells - all a part of me i'll never see. oxygen carbon dioxide cardio respiratory veins truth lungs hydrogen - all ink to the words that make up who i am. isn't it funny how everything begins with something smaller than itself. letters make words make sentences make paragraphs make chapters

My thoughts kept straying back to you. the way your green eyes seemed iradescent behind the lenses that frame your world. two green windos set in a nice house behind the most spectacular and full rose garden i'd ever seen. i'll see you tomorrow. what time. four-ish. awesome. meet outside the willy c. amazing how much of our time is spent at the williams center. we met there. i'd just come from an interview and strayed for some tea. i sat with the dark angel. you walked in and joined us. what a trinity we made. chai tea, green tea with honey, black coffee. you were half a stranger - a face i knew but hand no name for. i searched for a where a when a how but i could find none in my memory. it didn't matter. i knew you without knowing you. chai tea, green tea with honey, black coffee. red. blue. black. what a trio we made. we sat and exchanged verbs and nouns and points of view between sips of hot liquid while behind us a woman closed her eyes tightly and bared

Make novels make me. what makes this weather so cold. my fingers are begnning to numb and the metal that makes my kyes had been made cold by the dark air. it's late. i don't quite know how late but it was after the hour that the bus service between freshman parking and campus had ceased. the hair on the back of my neck prickled with the slight wind. your hair is always in some state of disarray. it reminds me of the universe and how everything is entropy. at least that's what my chemistry teacher said. did i hear? chai tea. four-ish. i can do that. green tea with honey. we'll meet at the willy c. black coffee. your side or mine. mine. the carbon dioxide escaping my lungs through the doorway of my lips trails upward toward where the sky would have been. the lines of smoke grey tangle themselves in each other before they dissipate. my thoughts seemed to chase each other often with no clear distinction between where one ended and another began. i say this. i shout this. LIKE THIS. like this. but maybe my words make nothing. it matters. do you hear?

6 comments:

Peter said...

Interesting. Kind of wish we could have had this at the literary magazine editor's meeting yesterday; there was a shortage of good prose.

Interesting images, and I like the ruminations on hearing. We do miss so much of what's being sounded out around us.

Not sure if I like the way you end the paragraphs so abruptly; I can kind of fill in what's going on but I don't know if I like it that way. That said, it adds to the stream-o-consciousness aspect of it.

JavaBomberman said...

uhh.. what?

cobaltgrc said...

I tried to read it all but then I remembered that I'm not emo and had to stop.

Poke said...

What do ya do with a BA in english?

April said...

starve

Poke said...

i blame hans for not continuing the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh0CyI0y6v8