Signal to me that
the hearing did not construct
sign language for your words,
it was no gesture on the part
of a hegemony to offer apparatus.
A walking, talking
entity, a personhood, just like
me, we establish our meaning,
it won’t be held back.
Whether I paint on the wall,
raise a finger in gentle swoop,
or shout from a high place,
A sentence gathers us together,
a chain of syntax.
Now or whenever you
Sought to point it out
To me that a mistake
Was to be addressed
In total promptness
Almost without further delay,
I took it to be a pleasant job
To be kept warned before
A major fall was mostly sure
And in avoiding it in time
It was success that
I was only bound to
Embrace fully awestruck.
I suppose the next thing
You’re going to tell me
Is that it was my fault.
I’m used to this type of
Ridiculousness going
Against reality.
Why can’t it be normal
For once? Why do we
Have to pretend?
Just once, I wish
You would let
The walls down.
Their faces and voices pound
at me with endless relentless
questions, and when I answer
they text message one
another with fervor
to spread the details
of my existence
like jam on molded bread.
Words can be soft
like a rose petal
Or can stick in your throat
like thorns, piercing and
grasping your tongue.
A single word can
heal a broken heart,
Or rip it into pieces
like a sharp blade.
Some words get stuck
deep inside our soul
without making a sound.
Those are the ones that
hurt the most.
today he is a shimmer of waved heat
coiling quick from the baked tar roads we drive,
mirage like moods shifting hazed sense to meet
my words with monosyllables; we strive
to communicate longings shuffled with
business and the banality of red bills
we must adhere to mapped routes and the lithe
electric hum that this fumed city instils
pesters us on through the stale afternoon
until we halt. Automatically charged
as the particles that are and will soon
repel us magnet like to each tear surged
from the hollows of our emotional hold
on each other; both owning and all sold.
More at https://www.jmiddletonpoems.com/.
A long line ties everything up.
It winds around the buildings.
Communicating something.
Is anyone inside?
Listening.
Holding hands and waiting?
One line lays on the ground and a young boy off his bike straddles it.
Talking to friends.
It’s an underground line.
Exposed just like the others.
They are hollow.
Like blood vessels.
As if your body were turned inside out
The building pulsating.
The ground, too.
Lines are life.
Mixed feelings
Misconceptions
Text messages
Hiding
Wanting to say
Being honest
Hurting as speaking
Unknowing
Should I say?
Will I regret?
If I don’t
I will.
I made
the statement
uttered
the question
a slip
of the tongue
a remark
sliding off the
hand
another question
lands splat
shouldn’t have
asked.
I would click
Reply
but what is there to say
Sometimes silence
is the best
or only
Response.