a poem for my roommate to perform
Remember the last time we talked? I took your words, they were big and round and blue, and I put them in a Jar to take home with me. And, when I got there I locked all the doors and closed all the windows because I knew that if I left them open your words would fly away, because that’s what they were prone to. I sat down in a chair and I tried to open the Jar, but I couldn’t, It wouldn’t open. You always said I needed a man to do anything. I got angry and I did something I shouldn’t have done, I took the jar and I threw it against the wall and I watched as the pecies and the words, now slightly contorted, fell to the ground. And I scooted my chair forword, and I looked at the words and some had fallen into sentences that didn’t make and sense like, “Marmalade Jesus,” and some were shouting really loud, trying to drown out the rest, like the word “Ocean.” And some were so quiet you couldn’t even hear them, you just had to read them like, “help” and “stay.” And I yelled at them, “ I Just wanted to have a conversation with you!!!! I could have married you, you know…” And then the biggest and boldest word was shouting way above the rest, the word was “MINE” and then I knew they wanted to be free so I opened up the windows and unlocked the doors and the words flew out! But I think I must have swallowed some of them, I can still feel them in my throat. I wasn’t until later when I was cleaning up the bits of broken glass on the floor that I found the last word. I don’t know how I could have missed it it was so bright but it was so small it had gotten caught beneath a shard of glass. I stared and stared at it, and it stared back, and I read it over and over and I sound it out and read it out load and once I did all my pain and anger rushed out of me, and I felt like my heart was flying and sinking and the same time… the word?… It was “You.”