A new draft of this. Rough but nearer. Nearest. Vicinityish.
I'm going to take a break and write funnier stuff today. Because I need a dose of that. Maybe I will begin my correspondence with Jack Howington, courtesy of Rod Wolfbike - Samurai/Big Brother Program rebel. That's overdue.
It's something that I wrote a while ago, totally hated and rewrote over this last week.
Missing Person Report
You buy two of everything,
have extra at meals.
The echo of your voice seems too much
like an answer.
Your childhood bed was the top half
of a bunk and below, you knew
was unrealized space.
You call him Camera 2.
Sometimes when you travel in groups,
you ask if anyone is missing
because it feels like that.
It’s not even a sadness you can sound.
You didn’t know him.
Literally, you were just roommates,
dorming together in a cramped red tent.
You both moved out on the same day,
and only one of you cried.
But why yesterday,
did you keep the park bench open,
did you tell the stranger:
I’m waiting for someone.
You’ve listened to the heart of another,
with your wrist to your other ear.
There’s some home in that.
It is silly to miss anyone you didn’t know,
even blood. But what a chance.
To have a parallel you, to have two minds,
to never have to say Do you understand?
Because both of you do. Because you can’t
help being each other.
In the mornings, you cross your eyes in the mirror,
see how it could have been.
Missing Person Report
You buy two of everything,
have extra at meals.
The echo of your voice seems too much
like an answer.
Your childhood bed was the top half
of a bunk and below, you knew
was unrealized space.
You call him Camera 2.
Sometimes when you travel in groups,
you ask if anyone is missing
because it feels like that.
It’s not even a sadness you can sound.
You didn’t know him.
Literally, you were just roommates,
dorming together in a cramped red tent.
You both moved out on the same day,
and only one of you cried.
But why yesterday,
did you keep the park bench open,
did you tell the stranger:
I’m waiting for someone.
You’ve listened to the heart of another,
with your wrist to your other ear.
There’s some home in that.
It is silly to miss anyone you didn’t know,
even blood. But what a chance.
To have a parallel you, to have two minds,
to never have to say Do you understand?
Because both of you do. Because you can’t
help being each other.
In the mornings, you cross your eyes in the mirror,
see how it could have been.
You just totally wrote my story in that poem. And you got it right.
ReplyDeleteReally? I'm fascinated. I'm flattered I nailed something real for you but how so?
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to tell me. I'm just curious.
I have a twin sister who died when we were 4 months old. It was the "parallel you" that rang the truest - which is interesting considering your most recent post - because I always think of her in terms of how my life would have been had she lived. Like there's a different Life of Rachel out there. We would have talked each other out of bad decisions - that mullet hair cut in the 8th grade, for example. I only ever imagine my life as better with her in it. Which I suppose is high expectation to put on someone you don't really know.
ReplyDeleteAnd then the notion of her being missing struck too. And not just that she's not here, but that she's expected - that she should be here. It's not a mournful feeling. More along the lines of what you wrote - sometimes I save a seat for her on the bench because I expect her to be here.
So, thanks.
That's interesting. This idea arrived from my brother who lost a twin but before they were born. And I've been fascinated with the idea of what our family would have been like to have that twin there.
ReplyDeleteThis twin idea is also stemming from a current fascination with the Many Worlds theory.
Thanks for telling me that. I suppose it is high expectation to put on someone you don't know. There's something about the 'missing' people in our lives that I find as an endless source to write about. We hope that if our life had what it was missing that life would be more realized. Someone would have caught us more.