voioioioioid
James Bowden
for you and you and my father and you and you
if everything is bolded, then nothing is bolded
if my father is correct, everything matters–every last drop of honey
if nothing is bolded, how shall we navigate the dark?
our eyes adjust to the void.
if my father correct: every last taste matters
I want to try and be terrific, like I was before: even if only for an hour.
my eyes adjust to the dark.
I glimpse my reflection in the black of phone–no longer your wonting irises
every hour spent with you, I swear I was terrific
they say that the need for new love is faithfulness to the old
I cannot see my reflection in your eyes any longer; as such the blackness beckons
, becomes me, I tip tap into the void, chiseling portrait out of absence with but my thumbs
The need for new love is faithfulness to the old. This I know; this I know–
each relationship, a proof of concept
I am becoming me, emptiness in effigy
and your tears kiss my shoulder, then plink, plink into my heel.
–
for a happy ending PG-13 audiences, turn to page 3.
for truth, continue.
–
You are but a proof of concept
that I am a real boy–
your pain, gasoline into my tank
my tongue, my phosphorous head
I am a real boy
You are all my toys
My cousins put firecrackers in their plastic dinosaurs for the new year
and I watched, wooden, unwillingly from the washroom window upon the toilet cover
something, anything to burn the dark
my eyes swivel back into the dark
a fwoosh, an extended arm against the dark
if you are light, then I must be dark
–
page 3
our eyes adjust to the dark
our eyes adjust to the bright
if nothing is you, then everything me
if everything honey, you are nothing to me
So when I wrote this, Jenny, my poetry professor, pointed out the sort of literary baggage that light and dark, black and white carry and I do agree–I don’t want to contribute to that, and see where this poem can be viewed that way. Obviously, I wrote it without that intention at all, and am not sure how to particularly redo this without the use of that theme, so I’m leaving it here for the nice parts and such.
This poem was written with a rather anguished tone in my head that I am not capable of recreating (or just refuse to try) in voice, but unsure how much that comes through.