Lyndsi Shae
There is a place in me that calls for words, or rather, there is a separate space that calls to be heard…. Like I am suffering from the Pangea of my inner components. But if they were to find each other, the clarity produced from their unity would be too much for the earth I stand upon. They would burst from punctuation… overflow the parenthetical footnote attempts to explain their truths. And still, be too much for pages overlooked and paperbacks singing silently from second-hand shelves. For now, it is enough to be here on this fleshy dirt beneath me. It is enough to pass by the dusty pages and listen for their call. Because in my ears, there are little waiters… who patiently linger for the right words, who jump and dance and call upon the rain when the dryspells become frighteningly familiar.
Today there are waves in the air that web the world, a computerized connection. A cheap imitation of what has always been possible. If we were to open up our senses, we could feel the woman next to us in the elevator, the men flying over us in stolen airplanes. We would know those through the walls, above the ceiling of our apartments, across the countries… those who walk in perpendicular paths, who balance the equator like tightrope walkers, who live within thoughts like ours, who walk on the valves of your midnight pulses, who feel the tightening of your veins in morning… who would know you and feel no shame.
This is the battle for everything.
For my Kennylove.
For sleepin, not alone, and not awake.
For strength against the allure of cheekbones and falsities.
For what I want.
For letting go, of what I want.
For letters.
For words.
For childhood.
For the right mouth at the other end of the telephone wire.
For the breathing of bare winter branches.
For splattered ink evidence.
For my own voice against the dripping faucet.
For what my mother calls “feeling centered.”
For fighting what my father blames on the way he was raised.
For saving my sister, my brothers.
For never denying the remnants that are sweepin themselves under the rug.
For the secrecy of a sunriser.
the patience of a night watcher.
the clarity of a bridge jumper.
A battle of waiting.
A battle of hope.
