Skip to main content

On My Honor

In the vicissitudes of life, I had started to know
The downturn from the sky-high. I watched it wax,
Wondering if it would wane, or rain, or snow.

Instead, it was just cold, like silence. But not the silence
Of respect. Nor the silence like standing in a band room in 6th grade,
Instruments still, while we heard about Terror on the television, and watched the towers fall.

A tragedy, it was something close to that, but less
Permanent. There was hope of rising from the grave
After three days or a hundred, I’d wait for you

To come around. But I wasn’t the symbol to your meaning,
I was just the cymbal that brought noise to your busy
Mental street. Clash, bang, just atmosphere humming.

Notes on a page you barely read, maybe skimmed.
Swipe, like, scroll -- just another “friend” making
The Honor Roll. On my honor, do I solemnly swear,

To care. To carry your memory like a wound,
Unforgettable and deep, oh the colors you made beneath my skin.
I wanted rainbows for days. But silence, silence takes our want away.

And what you wanted most
was silence.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bonus Poem: Look Up!

Looking down, I read the priceless pages, Someone else, sweetly, precisely, Had written their drinkable life on. And I drank in the appreciation Of her words, one sentence at a time, A good, fresh white. Sensational, the clouds were Pouring in, filling my cup,  Easing in, with a soft voice that said, "Look up!" My eyes glanced, only peeking At first, toward the sky. Those rain-bringers harnessing My irises with glee. And as if it had been there All along, the whole long while, A sparrow drifted into the Watercolor before me, soaring. It glided on the currents That were my own world, too. And we shared the view, Him up there, I, eyes lifting further now. And then the wind found itself Playing in the cottonwood's hair. And I smiled, thinking About how good it probably felt, Those wind-fingers, sifting through. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The Protagonist

She was more of an idea Than a person, yet Her arms reached through The wrinkled pages As I was planning Her defenestration. “Don't,” she said, holding My hand steady. Her typical loquaciousness Gone in a moment - being At the rim does that. Her desperate idea-fingers Grasping, trying to stop The Dusk. I brooded over her Resistance. This story Would be knee-deep In hardship, in never-before-felt Pain. How could I put her In the middle of this Vast dystopian wastebasket And hope she clamors Out? Perhaps I could give her A companion, a slobber-filled Canine or a not-so-kindred Spirit? I could fill her days With synchronicity, with a This-leads-to-that purpose, to fight through The drawl and the drudge, The beginning. In this oneiric world, More nightmarish than The last, she would find Herself at the cusp of Her Self. First demure, red lips Parting only for candy-laced words, And then later, only To respect a humble god or command Her hunger-ridden army To live. Yes, I see the smoke ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leashed on the Edge of "I"

Do you ever wish you could view yourself As others see you? At a distance? That you might become one of the crowd Or the speck from the airplane? Or maybe you might become so close That you are nothing but locks of hair And the smell of Cabernet and black tea And a force in the night. I imagine you could even be mistaken For someone else. Could you mistake you For someone else? I think I could do it, Be you, or her, or him, or that dog over there Sniffing the fence, sorting out these Divisions. I didn't say I was I from the Beginning, but I wonder how we drag "I" Around like a stick, and chew a piece off Now and again. You were thrown the stick, And you fetched. But what if you could sniff Beyond the fence and be something more Or something less? Would you? Could we?
Post a Comment
Read more