Like Crutches - August LPS
Published on: Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:25:57 -0700
For a friend. Before you start reading, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the things this piece won't be I'm sorry for all the wars it won't win and all the ways it won't repay you for your losses. I'm sorry that words can't undo caskets and car wrecks I'm sorry this won't put hearts back on sleeves and flowers back in baskets but I just had to write it. I had to write it because I heard through grapevines and broken telephones and the breaks between the lines in your poetry that as of late there's plenty of reasons to lose faith and not enough reasons to lift heads from pillows in the morning, and I'm writing because maybe this might just be the difference between sleep and wakefulness. But maybe I shouldn't flatter myself, because I don't claim to be a hero and most days I feel closer to zero, it's just that I mean to say you fascinate me and I'd hate for something like that to go to waste. You gave me a glimpse and I read your words until I was tasting them and I flipped through them line by page as if I was chasing them and I want more. I want more of the good stuff you keep inside I want more of the stuff I don't claim to know a thing about I want to sit with you over pots of coffee infinite pots of coffee and I want to listen to you speak I want you to pour your heart out until it makes us both weak and then I want to use poetry like crutches and hobble into literary epiphanies with you; I want to write side by side with you until we're wrapped up in the clutches of words and life and soft places to land. I've watched you draw lines in sand like there's magic in your hand and I've watched you watch me on stage like maybe if you could find steps up here too you might start to find that words have already started writing themselves on a new page and that all of them are worth hearing ( you) are worth hearing over and over again. You catch light like you're stealing the day time and I'm wondering when you'll catch enough to see how much you already shine. I read somewhere that you seek out words like a poacher, maybe that's because we're all talking in crescent shapes and this circle game needs closure but I'd be happy to talk shapes with you any day. You are one of those people that floats through fond recollections and nights I wish I could remember better like dreams float through sleep, and every once in a while I realize that you are so embedded in those memories that it seems shameful that I haven't tried harder to open you up and give you some of me in return, every once in a while you make me realize how much I have left to learn. Before you keep reading, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the things this piece still hasn't pieced together and I'm sorry that this shit won't bring back memories forever. If I knew how to give you something really worth hanging on to, if I knew how to write hope I'd write nothing but stars and streetlamps and things that bring people home and I'd plant trust like seeds to sprout dreams from stone and I would thank you. Because, I'm not sure when I met you but I know there's parts of you I'm still waiting to meet and I swear as I stand when they get here, I'll have saved them a seat.
Author: StopThisTrain19
Keywords: Stephanie Heney Steph London Poetry Slam Spoken Word
Added: September 1, 2008
