Every day,
As I slide the key
Into the ignition
To drive
Away,
My mind
Stays
Home
With them
And her,
As she sleeps
Finally
During the day-
No longer at night-
Squirming,
Squealing,
Searching for a nipple.
(originally recorded as voice memo while driving to work- 4/11/10)
Timothy Vance Jackson
My mind
Is running around
Loose of its roots.
Bouncing off the walls of my head.
Strange how it seems to be all alone,
But I know that something else runs around in there.
-
Maybe that is why my mind runs so,
If it stops moving
Maybe this other thing
In my head
Will catch it and eat it…
-
Every soft juicy morsel of my mind
As if it were a well cooked crustacean,
Being devoured by a hungry old man.
-
Strange how it runs…
This poem was written on the back of a paycheck stub ($5.15/hr) because when the poem came to me, I had nothing else to write on. A friend of mine later turned it into a song and used to perform it at open mic performances.
Paystub poem- 3/21/90
The bottom of the check stub, below the poem, has two magazines I sent the poem to… both politely declined to print it.
For those who can’t read the terrible handwriting, here’s the poem-
She turned to walk away
And she couldn’t see
The tears in his eyes
Or the pain in his soul.
-
It was the longest walk
She would ever take,
As she crossed the room
To the door.
-
He was blind
To the swelling
Hurt in her breaking heart,
So they were both
Ignoring the other’s burden,
Failing to see
Any other side.
-
He felt his heart beating in his hands
And when he opened them
He found nothing but cool emptiness,
As tears streamed down his face.
-
She couldn’t see my pain
And I refused hers
Because I was blind
To everything but my own loneliness.
July 17, 1989
You almost can’t tell I was only 19 when I wrote that. Almost.
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