B-Sides

 

In the morning when I wake

My room smells like cedar

It’s filled with auspicious

Light seeping through the curtains

And the crevices your sleeping smile creates.

 

When we argue you always

Dismiss my opinions on the terms of semantics

Words are my fickle fuse.

 

Music can communicate with out the words I need

Same as the freckle above your belly button.

 

Rivers can speak by

Depth, strength and the absences they choose to create

 

You cry when moments move you

I cry when I laugh too hard—nervous laughter

 

All I have are words

And the fear that you’ll never want to leave me

 

Its funny because words never escape you.

Nor do the pieces of frozen lasagna in my fridge

Or the girls you meet on Facebook.

 

If B-sides are backsides I don’t know

what your pop hit is.

 

Maybe it’s the 378 photos I took of you

Maybe it’s your dog

Maybe it’s my inability to match your

Extroverted egotism

Too lost in my own preoccupations hand-written letters and tone.

 

My B-side is instrumental

Cellos and piano

Speak without having to talk about

broken bow or missing key

 

Your rap becomes my A-side

Spitting bars so intricately connected to the grudges you exalt and the way memory unfolds. How you’ve gotta fight back, get the man, do your part, take a stand

against the mounting social oppression of city and the apathy you choose to desire.

And your track ends with

Pop pop

                                                                        Shot’s fired.

 

And that’s when my memory fades into chapters

That’s when multiplicities of thoughts hand crafted monuments of desires, odes to spooning until 2 a.m. and ballads to the way your laugh tickles me are

Replaced with a single song…pop pop

Shot’s fired.

It repeats until the turn of a page

Pop pop pop pop pop p–

Remembering memory forgets its B-sides

They become punctuated in soft hollow

Crevices of your smile I hold

When I sleep.