How can it have been so many years?
It doesn't seem possible
but nothing slows down in response.

When the last echoes of voices and sighs die down
and the only light is what we feebly thrust into the darkness,
dying from the moment lit,
slowly grows a roar behind me.

A rumble hidden by the hiss and hum and buzz and thrum
of daily movement, and any gaps
(keep moving! fill! cover! speak! anything!)
...

But I know what it is, it's not one sound but many
the cloud of sound from doors closing
hundreds, thousands, I've lost count, the will to count
they all blend into a roar, a ring, a shudder
each with a pain like a smack on the face
an ache like a bruise you forget until you run into it
each with a voice saying the same words differently
no, not, never, won't, can't, shouldn't,

no, thank you.

(Was my hand ever on the doorknob? It's so hard to remember... )

...

Sometimes it feels as though life is about choosing against.
Where choosing for something is an illusion,
just the absence of what's been rejected
as darkness is the absence of light.
And life's not an opening,
but one long closing.

It's hard to take a step sometimes.
I can't see backwards, but I feel the wall against my back;
with every step I take, it moves with me,
its granite skirt scraping the ground,
far too hard to ever be broken back through.
I reach my hands out to either side, palms back,
and feel its coldness.
That way is nothing.
There is no longer a that way.

Sometimes it seems like the door is so far out in front
that you'll never be on the other side of it.
Then, before you know it,
no matter how hard you try to turn your head,
you can't turn far enough,
and it's behind you.
And the memory is frozen, and your heat,
cut off, burns in you

And another clap and lock
is added to the cloud
and the door is

closed.

Labels: Poems