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Literature Text
My friend told me that in his country, if a girl was not married by twenty-five,
this was the first bell, the first alarm that she had done something wrong.
I thought about my own mother, married twice at twenty-one and thirty-three
and wondered why age did not change how wrong the men were, how
they drank her dreams in distant bars, how they toyed with their wedding bands
until they became weapons. I thought about myself, how I treat the word
marriage as an alarm, two rings ringing in peeling discordant chords, how
at twenty-one my mother walked down the aisle in a white pencil skirt, looked into
the eyes of the wrong choice and shared her bed, her house, her third finger
with a man who did not understand love if it was not proven to him. I thought about
myself, ageing in curling loops, receding like bamboo from the ground, from the
church steps, running from continent to continent, always searching for a new horizon
and a farther star to aim for. My feet have never stopped for long enough to question
why they are running, love has always been a fast-food, grab-it-and-go meal of
mistakes and quick fixes. It is hard to love a freight train, and freight trains do not stop,
only pause. It is hard for an aeroplane to love the land, it merely
perches and then disentangles to soar high, high, high in endless
open skies. I thought about my mother at thirty-three, seeing beauty
in a monster, a heart in a shell, a love in a lie and how I watched one
pair of rings split my world in half. I thought about how my young ears
heard the steady flatline of Sunday mornings and Saturday evenings and
daddy-daughter-days, how he taught me to pick up my pace, that power
lies with whoever cares less and when you are racing towards some new
compass point there is nothing more important than one foot falling in
front of the other. I have been running for ten years, tracing highways like
the veins in the back of my hands, sprinting through the roiling hills of England,
through antique streets of Kyoto, the bustling waterways of Bangkok, the
maze of bamboo China. And I have paused for breath, sometimes in the arms
of one-day-only bargain boys, sometimes at crossroads with another wanderer’s
path, watching them retreat into the distance with a momentary frown, sometimes
with soft girls and hard boys and soft boys and hard girls and the road always calls,
a siren song in the nights where things get too comfortable, where sleep starts to
lull, where days and nights merge. And there are memories at my heels, remnants
and relics of could-have-been boys scattered across Asia, artefacts of close-encounters
and my mother’s two folded wedding dresses gathering dust, two discarded gold bands
that push and push and push me forward. My friend told me that in his country, if a girl
was not married by twenty-five, this was the first bell, the first alarm that she had done
something wrong. And frankly, just to find the ocean that holds me, the city that keeps
me spell-bound for longer than a week, the boy or girl that stops this train in its tracks
is enough. Love is not a race, because I have learned to sprint faster than most and it
hasn’t helped me yet. It is not when but who, my mother taught me this with a pair
of mismatched wedding rings that sit in their boxes, on a shelf she can’t reach, in a
house that is hers.
this was the first bell, the first alarm that she had done something wrong.
I thought about my own mother, married twice at twenty-one and thirty-three
and wondered why age did not change how wrong the men were, how
they drank her dreams in distant bars, how they toyed with their wedding bands
until they became weapons. I thought about myself, how I treat the word
marriage as an alarm, two rings ringing in peeling discordant chords, how
at twenty-one my mother walked down the aisle in a white pencil skirt, looked into
the eyes of the wrong choice and shared her bed, her house, her third finger
with a man who did not understand love if it was not proven to him. I thought about
myself, ageing in curling loops, receding like bamboo from the ground, from the
church steps, running from continent to continent, always searching for a new horizon
and a farther star to aim for. My feet have never stopped for long enough to question
why they are running, love has always been a fast-food, grab-it-and-go meal of
mistakes and quick fixes. It is hard to love a freight train, and freight trains do not stop,
only pause. It is hard for an aeroplane to love the land, it merely
perches and then disentangles to soar high, high, high in endless
open skies. I thought about my mother at thirty-three, seeing beauty
in a monster, a heart in a shell, a love in a lie and how I watched one
pair of rings split my world in half. I thought about how my young ears
heard the steady flatline of Sunday mornings and Saturday evenings and
daddy-daughter-days, how he taught me to pick up my pace, that power
lies with whoever cares less and when you are racing towards some new
compass point there is nothing more important than one foot falling in
front of the other. I have been running for ten years, tracing highways like
the veins in the back of my hands, sprinting through the roiling hills of England,
through antique streets of Kyoto, the bustling waterways of Bangkok, the
maze of bamboo China. And I have paused for breath, sometimes in the arms
of one-day-only bargain boys, sometimes at crossroads with another wanderer’s
path, watching them retreat into the distance with a momentary frown, sometimes
with soft girls and hard boys and soft boys and hard girls and the road always calls,
a siren song in the nights where things get too comfortable, where sleep starts to
lull, where days and nights merge. And there are memories at my heels, remnants
and relics of could-have-been boys scattered across Asia, artefacts of close-encounters
and my mother’s two folded wedding dresses gathering dust, two discarded gold bands
that push and push and push me forward. My friend told me that in his country, if a girl
was not married by twenty-five, this was the first bell, the first alarm that she had done
something wrong. And frankly, just to find the ocean that holds me, the city that keeps
me spell-bound for longer than a week, the boy or girl that stops this train in its tracks
is enough. Love is not a race, because I have learned to sprint faster than most and it
hasn’t helped me yet. It is not when but who, my mother taught me this with a pair
of mismatched wedding rings that sit in their boxes, on a shelf she can’t reach, in a
house that is hers.
Literature
chaos theory
I soaked your butterflies in vodka
and buried them alive.
I planted yellow daisies in the 20-proof dirt
and waited for the sunshine
to make us all
golden.
Sometimes when the winds are angry where you are,
I think of your butterflies and wonder
if we're all still fighting to get out.
If they ever named a hurricane after me
I would call you up just to say
I told you so.
Literature
what to say when you can't say i love you anymore
your eyes were always soft, even when
your voice went hard. for a while,
i treated you like a god and i’m
not saying that i worshipped you,
but i let you hold my hands
and i told you all the sins i carried
in their grooves.
i have since been told that they were never
your burden to bear,
but that doesn’t stop me from aching for you
every time i catch myself thinking
about how it would feel to kiss the girl
two doors down. it’s been a while
since i’ve confessed and i’m not sure
i remember how. the thing is,
i don’t feel that guilty anymore.
the thing is, holding hands is only
ten fingers away from letting
Literature
this poem is worth $3.27
who says you don't get paid for poetry?
i'm getting paid eleven fifty four
to sit in the corner of a building,
red detroit diesel rusting,
meters fussing.
automotive, loco-motion and motives,
h building buzzing,
my brain lame and lusting
for romance; melancholic motor
i'm running in place,
pumping my lungs
leaning towards failure,
tripping on cables and wires.
cables and fables
(because they don't exist)
wired and exhausted,
my bloodshot eyes
are flossed with lights,
that my eyelids
can't protect me from.
i don't smile enough
and i won't cry a lot
because my sadness
is no longer an event.
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[is hard on the knees and murder on the lungs]
20/4/15 Napowrimo Poem 19
NaPoWriMoÂ
My friend actually did say this, but he agreed with me that putting a time limit on love is silly. I don't intend to offend, start an argument or anything like that. This is just what my life has shown me, and I guess I have started to look at why I am awful with the idea of long-term relationships.
20/4/15 Napowrimo Poem 19
NaPoWriMoÂ
My friend actually did say this, but he agreed with me that putting a time limit on love is silly. I don't intend to offend, start an argument or anything like that. This is just what my life has shown me, and I guess I have started to look at why I am awful with the idea of long-term relationships.
© 2015 - 2024 comatose-comet
Comments10
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As you might have gathered from my April Haiku entries for that month's contest, I have had my share of heartbreak before getting lucky at 30. (My wife of 28 years was 27 when we married.) And, as the child of divorce, I have other reasons to identify with this. (Not to mention your mention of places that I have been.)
This left me somewhat numb. Don't take this in a bad way, it just speaks to the power of it. I will have to come back to this again after the initial pain wears off.
Thank you.
This left me somewhat numb. Don't take this in a bad way, it just speaks to the power of it. I will have to come back to this again after the initial pain wears off.
Thank you.