A Thursday in October

A plain black and white clock hangs heavily on the wall behind my chair.
12:00, it reads. It's Thursday.

I swallow an ocean's worth of anxiety.
So afraid. So unprepared. It mustn't show.

My hands rummage clumsily through an old, multi-colored rucksack.
What am I looking for exactly? I only see you:

two large hands, strong shoulders, a chiseled jaw, a captivating smile;
two bright blue eyes changing color in the course of night and day.

I forget to breathe; I forget myself entirely.
What is my name? Where am I from? All I know is I belong with you.

A string uncoils from the rim of my heart, climbs my parched throat,
and slowly drifts in the air to the soft opening of your ripe lips.

My pulse excites fifty thousand beats a second at the least.
A hollowness grows as the ribbon of my life escapes me hopelessly.

To lose such control, to allow this weakness to glimmer in my aura--
I am ashamed and yet so entranced.

If there was anyone else in the room a moment ago, I can't remember,
but I am fully aware of your casual sighs, your fast movements.

I struggle to keep pace with this unnerving rush flowing through my veins.
Sad thoughts linger of a future you choose to avoid and a past you've already forgotten.

Self-blame explodes into a poisonous mist hovering within the depths of my stomach.
Do you notice the change in my features from a week ago?

Freshly printed papers are scattered across the blank table.
Where is the writing? Why do you seem so far away?

I try to divert my attention to the nearest window, but without success.
In my imagination, you're holding me in your arms by the warm cafe entrance.

Hold me tighter, please. I feel utterly alone.
Don't let go.

You enter, exit, and reenter the enclosed box in which we sit, a quiet group.
When you pass by, a mallet beats my chest. Won't you stop to say "hello"?

I beg my body to muster strength so a voice could express these emotions.
Is it love? Is it confusion? Results of neglect? All of them?

If a narcotic would numb the ache pulsating my temples, I'd ask for a hundred.
Let me overdose instead of watching you close the door in my face.

Secretly, I wish I could cry now. Wish you would look at me.
Wish you would remember my existence.

Little taps on my frail shoulders, childish laughter close to my ear,
whispers of typical gossip, but none of it interrupts my contemplations, unfortunately.

What are you thinking? Are you doing this on purpose?
Are you even aware of how immensely you're tormenting my soul?

You appear absolutely innocent, like a newborn baby.
There's an urge to accuse you and to kiss you.

Stereotypes flash in a realm of wonder. You've done this before, haven't you?
I should've predicted the outcome months earlier when you meant nothing.

Now you've carelessly stolen everything; my thoughts, dreams,
my heart.

Why did you make big promises ad-lib? Why weren't you thoughtful?
Don't you experience regret? Time is painful.

I trace my fingertips across the skinny figure of a pencil,
barely brushing reality. I want to go home.

An acidic sadness settles in the corners of my tired eyes.
My shoulders cave; my head falls; my hopes diminish. You open a book and disappear.

Scribble rubbish on the paper. Tears are blinding anyhow.
Grasp my reluctance to expose this. I mustn't surrender.

But what do I have left sitting here like a fragile flower stem?
You're my water. Rain, I'd rather you drown me than let me thirst horribly.

You're so near, so beautiful, too powerful. Suddenly, you glance directly
into the mirrors of my pain and I break apart; I surrender.

I forget to breathe; I forget myself entirely.
What is my name? Where am I from? All I know is I belong with you.

You turn away and I follow your gaze to the plain black and white clock hanging heavily still.
1:00, it reads. 

It's Thursday.
You pack your things and all I've learned is the way it feels to die alive again.

Ambiguous Panorama

Unlock the bedroom door and with quiet steps

traverse the mile past the 251^st section where unfenced caramel cerfs

peacefully graze upon thick, dark Northern grass.

(Their hooves may be silent and expressions sweet, but

when cars, by necessity’s motivation, venture along the snaking

beam, animal eyes flare dumbfounded not seconds before

bodies scatter, blood-stained! The innocent are safe nowhere.)

There you shall witness your small world by newfound perspective:

Do children live within a thousand yards of this place?

Quietness, not definitively tranquility, would prove the impossibility,

but here I Watch two eleven-year old boys dressed in the same

butter-yellow shirts prance towards their unseen, waiting

parent. Only a couple of numbers down, eight years of presence,

and still I could wager my entire loan amounts that we’ll never,

not once, meet.. as we never have.

(Should I smile or frown for the cause?)

But of course children reside in this house, because there, you see,

is a large elementary bird perched heavily on the sturdy, blackened

branch nearby another tenant’s rusty window.

A taller familiar creature looms like a Blue Mountain

in convenient space beyond my own freshly-painted back wall in a spoiled

realm overlooking the same, narrow stream.

Has any resident ever stood on its shore?

I imagine no pair of feet will, or maybe, now that I’m aware,

I shall be the first.

(Amusing, isn’t it, that despite the monthly periods when skies screech

and pour their feminine hearts into the lingering waterbed,

sharing tears of sorrow to unselfishly feed our deadening

gardens, we, in generational ignorance, barely recall its existence?)

           

Wait, goodness, is that lightning flashing through Louie’s ceiling?

There- there it is again!!- so colorful ? and harmless?

Oh, it’s worse but more common than nature itself now;

a wired box, typically black or silver, in various sizes, propped

in perfect view for anyone able to search for entertainment at moment’s bidding

on the opposite side of reality’s pane.

But WE ARE CONNECTED, argue the plain-faced Giants,

including the eve-angel Kawaski, who, with golden wings spread, claim

our communicational distances are  a stone’s throw from handle to handle, and they,

progressing demi-gods, have helped us.

WE CAN TEXT, E-MAIL, ETC.

I inquire: Can’t we walk to converse in a homely fashion?

           

1: Neighbor, good morning! Won’t you dine with me? (Hopeful smile.)

2: I promise I will when the blue moon rises! Can’t wait to see you then! (Distant smile.)

1: (Inwardly frowning; visibly smiling.)

Perhaps life atop our Hill is this way because there are no pavements;

it is simply a long Road with complexes twenty feet apart,

seamed loosely by electric pole wires.

Occasionally, we, the practitioners of a culture of checking mailboxes

and waving half-hellos in the anxious chance of crossing paths with someone

(as if overpopulation is solely a theory),

exhale in response to the pulchritude surrounding the medium-wealth

home we share, before we retire like lazy bears to a den,

tacitly, comfortably, while disco colors dance across weakening visions and

blank perimeters.

I suppose, to put this simply, once you see a monarch butterfly as beautiful as

the one kissing the mouths of daisies by my bare feet now,

an epiphany envelops your mind and provokes the wonder of why

a nice street like this is only viewed by drivers

breaking speed limits.

(Taking a second glance, nothing has changed.)

And so I sit here on a mossy boulder,

skeptically staring at the presented metaphor of a cozy edifice

where “families” lock themselves in separate rooms to CONNECT TO THE OUTSIDE

WORLD: NEWS, SHOWS, ADVERTISEMENTS, ETC.

I cannot deny I enjoy taking part,

but must we forget this smaller world: home and natural art?

Now you have seen this is an era in which the “medium

of entertainment permits millions of people to listen to the same joke

at the same time, and yet remain lonesome,” writes a man

as he sits upon a cloud above you, pointing to the child who has recently

woken and forgotten how to gambol on a playground.

Heed my advice: leave the door ajar and watch the Cortlandt deer.