| 3.28.2007 |
| Poem .16 |
Sitting on the sidewalk
Rocking out to the sound of footsteps falling on asphalt.
The rhythm of walking keeps my heart pumping
And my pen scratching on paper.
I'm counting this community
Tallying the number of people as they pass
48…49…50…
Searching for a familiar face and finding…
Only strangers.
This hard concrete does nothing for my posture,
And I wonder what it would cost for these numbers in my head
To just stop.
And I sit and I slouch and I count to
52…53…54…
I've had more than my fair share of lovers.
More than I deserve of cuddles under covers
Of boys who won't discover that I'm not like all the others.
That somewhere deep inside,
Under this skin, behind these eyes
Is a girl who knows she lies when she says she never cries
Because these numbers in my head
61…62…63…
Make me wish that I could be a little less concerned
With how big this world is and instead come to the conclusion that
Concrete is not comforting compared to the arms of a friend,
And blue lines on yellow legal pads is not art no matter how much I want it to be,
That an old man, his wife, and her sister are so much more than
68…69…70…
And I sit here on this sidewalk.
And I am acutely aware of the fact that I am utterly alone in this crowd.
It's getting late.
I stand and stretch my stiff limbs and head home.
I walk with the paper safely tucked between my arm and body,
And the pen nestled behind my right ear.
But the shuffle of my own shoes on the street sounds strangely unfamiliar.
As I wait for the red hand to give way to a green man, I notice another.
A boy, maybe nine or ten,
Kneeling in front of a folding chair across the street.
His eyes scan the crowd as the pencil in his left hand makes a mechanical motion,
Ticking like a human metronome.
The light changes and we make eye contact as I walk towards him,
And I know for that one second, in one hash mark on a page, at least to him
I count. |
posted by Little Red @ 4:42 PM  |
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