S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
I am a scared creature. So, when the professor looks over his computer, bores his eyes into mine, and tells me that I can't visit and play the pianos until I take one of the music classes, I can hear a door in my head slam shut.
And I can't open it - not because it's locked, but because my arms can't reach the knob, my legs won't carry me into the building, and my heart is afraid of what I will find waiting for me.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Take me by the hand and pull me into the room where the saws roar their way through my ears, dust sneaking its way into my eyes as you tell me that I need to nail these planks together, polish the edges, glue on the panels and the circuitry and the hopes of five people coming together and trying desperately to get an A (and maybe, if we're really good, change the world, but we're all too tired and busy and scared to believe that).
And when I stand there, when I lean in close and ask what you meant, when I step aside to let you put it together, drop it, pick up the pieces, please forgive me - my rattled mind's already wandered away, heading up and down the stairs to the store in town where I bought little pieces of history (all stuffed in my safe and forgotten, because I'm good at repeating my mistakes) before I came here.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Sometimes I swear I can remember hearing the noise my ankle made as the muscles and tendons twisted, pulling me down onto the track floor.
I don't know if I imagined it or not - I remember the man who'd kicked the soccer ball to me running over, and I remember telling the coach that it was okay, that I'd just walk it off, and I remember walking around the gym, grabbing my things, hobbling across the street, and talking to the professor who would drive me to the health center when I told him I couldn't walk there.
And I remember the panic that shoved its way into my chest and forced the air out of my lungs the instant that I realized I had fallen down, and that something in my body had finally given out (and I was afraid the rest of it would too).
And I remember the panic that shoved its way into my chest as I messaged my professors and told them that I wouldn't be showing up to class that day, and that I might miss the lectures that held up my grades and held up my scholarships and let me stay in this university at all.
I don't remember the moment I fell, but I'm not sure it was as important as the aftermath.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Oooh these are kinda different from older poems of yours that I've read. It's a fun experiment though!
btw, is your ankle okay?
"I've got dreams like you--no really!--just much less, touchy-feeley. They mainly happen somewhere warm and sunny on an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone surrounded by enormous piles of money." -Flynn Rider, Tangled
@Ventomology: Yeah it's still a little sore and swollen, but it's right about as good as it was a few weeks ago.
And thanks! I dunno if this is really experimental; I'm just expanding on my style from last year and moving to more autobiographical stuff. Still, it's been fun to write!
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
You saw me sitting in front of the door, knees pressed against my chest, crying into my hands, and you, out of all the people who walked by and did nothing (and they had reason not to, because how does anyone respond to seeing an almost-grown man crying?), sat down beside me.
And you listened to me when I told you that I was tired, I was scared, it had been a rough day. And you told me that it was fine, that I was going to be okay, that you could stay as long as you needed me to.
I don't remember your face and I don't remember your name and I barely remember what you even told me - maybe I'm making some of it up, but, for once, I could read the gestures that I didn't even see, and I could hear the kindness in the words that I almost didn't hear,
and I knew I had found a friend in the moment in time that we were together.
Last edited by TheSilverFox on Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
I envy you (maybe that's not right to say but nothing about this is right); I've never seen someone walk into their grave with so big of a smile on their face. You could see the light at the end of the tunnel; you saw it shrink from a lighthouse to a pinprick; you decided to stop waiting and wheel yourself to the finish line.
I am a scared creature; I don't know how you decided to stop the pain, what inside you inspired you to spend those last few weeks alive and happy (and sad and angry and scared because you are only human but that never stopped you from cracking jokes and propping your heart on your shoulder and speeding your wheelchair up and down the neighborhood streets), what let you choose your death and surround yourself with loved ones even as those weeks melted away and faded into that quiet emptiness that you joined.
I hope that, somewhere in that crowd of voices, you heard me say goodbye, and that you didn't hear my brain whir and fizz and pop as it tried to realize that you wouldn't be around in the morning.
Because death is a stranger, one that my mind tries to answer by reciting equations as I walk by these windows, watch the cars drive by on the streets below, and look up at the tip of Castle Rock to see if anyone is standing on it - x(t) = x_0 + v_x0(t) + v_x(t) y(t) = y_0 + v_y0(t) + 1/2gt^2 (I was never very good at coping).
And yet, you've had your time (or maybe you didn't, but you weren't the kind of person to let that stop you); I don't know if I've had my time yet (and I'm going to make sure that doesn't stop me).
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
We woke up early in the morning and braved water and paint (or, you did - I hid behind you, if only because you were more comfortable getting soaked than I was).
We made our way up and down the hill (and I set two stones up there, both because two smaller stones were easier to carry than one large one, and I wanted to be different).
And we sat by the road waiting for the buses to come, talking about whether we'd make it through college (in between jokes and watching the coming storm and looking out over the roads cutting across the plains, twisting around the mountains, and running through our hearts with all the vagueness and mystery and fear that is life).
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
I drag the basket up and down the elevator (and sometimes I'm afraid the elevator will finally fail and trap me inside, because it's old and battered and sometimes the door doesn't want to open), haul my clothes into the washer and dryer, pull my textbooks out of my backpack, and bury myself in cell structure or how DNA splits apart or how to fling bricks so they break windows.
The words and the ink and the paper mold together, pulling in my eyes and yanking on my ears and hiding the steady stream of people flowing around me as they find better ways to spend a Sunday morning (but I can't hear them over my headphones, and maybe that's for the best, because I have work to do).
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
It's super cute. I feel like you could do more format-wise to set apart the pieces in parentheses? But like, up to you bro.
"I've got dreams like you--no really!--just much less, touchy-feeley. They mainly happen somewhere warm and sunny on an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone surrounded by enormous piles of money." -Flynn Rider, Tangled
@Ventomology, thanks! And yeah, that's very fair, I'm hella inconsistent about how I arrange the parts in parentheses. Poem six has neatly arranged parentheses to end each stanza, but otherwise I end up being like "ehhh I'll just throw them in wherever." And hey, it adds a sense of a train of thought, which isn't that far from what I'm aiming for.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
Guess who definitely 100% used her laundry poem for April Madness.
"I've got dreams like you--no really!--just much less, touchy-feeley. They mainly happen somewhere warm and sunny on an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone surrounded by enormous piles of money." -Flynn Rider, Tangled
if I can't write a better poem tomorrow I'll probably join you lol
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
One of the days, I hope to push open your doors and sleep on your couches until security walks by and kicks me out.
All I've known of you are the tarps draped over your windows, the ventilation shafts poking out of your glass, the boards and the yellow tape and the scaffolding and the asbestos that they've had to suck out of you year after year after year.
One of the days, I hope I can stop calling you asbestos building, and add you to the rooms and hallways and staircases where I live out my weird little life.
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse a persona che mai tornasse al mondo, questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
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