no.7
“Play your cards right,’
They say as they hand me inherited grief
and and deep, heavy, passionate spirit.
“Do what you are told,”
They say as they tell me contradictory phrases,
point me in every direction around except up.
“Be yourself,”
They say as they take away my favorite colors,
replace them with concepts and rules.
I hear them whisper to me from time to time.
They say things that sound like
crunching glass,
an instrument strummed after long being out of tune.
Sometimes I step in.
Sometimes I sweep up the glass for them,
so they won’t cut their feet.
Other times I don’t.
I sit in another room down the hall,
I play my own instrument, only loud enough for me to hear.
The best times are when I let them bleed all over the nice clean floors.
When I snap the neck of your cheap ass guitar.
What is most curious about it
is that
no matter what I do,
how I respond,
They seem..
Upset.
Not devastation,
more like bewilderment.
Some are scared, angry
Others impressed, thankful even.
But upset.
Like an infant
experiencing peas for the first time.
“What is that?!”
They say, probably.
Like a bird
migrating higher and higher above the equator every year.
“Where are we?!”
They say, probably.
Like an alien
visiting a new planet with new forms of life.
“Who are you?!”
They say, probably.
Truth is:
I don’t really know who They are,
They really don’t who I am.
I can’t ever hear them loud enough.
Not over the sound of steady drums,
A soul voice,
And a little saxophone to make it interesting.
I am taking my sheet music,
all stained and crumpled,
and I am throwing it away.
I will play,
and play, and play,
and play, and play, and play.
Until the windows break,
until the notes hit every beat on time.
I don’t give a fuck who cleans up the mess,
and I don’t give a fuck what it sounds like.
#d00zyl0vesy0u
