notapoem

home stretch by Julia Pott


if you have nothing to say then you are nothing they say
it seems to me only that this table is white ,
that it is too warm for autumn ,
__(too bright for it to be tonight
____so then i must have nothing to say

all this time unused words continue to pile up
they make a thin film, like dust maybe ; like books and dishes and pizza boxes all over

(sometimes i tire of fantasizing about headlights and carousels and hometowns that stood in one place long enough to make sense,

god you're dull, tell me a story. ; 'there was this piano once' (it began), but before i could recall -
enough. (if you have nothing to say then you are

it seems to me only that tonight is (bleeds away from itself,
slips its fingers into sunrise and locks in tight and opens its eyes to a blueness
(she's looking in the mirror, says to me they're soo blue! i nod and she asks how blue? and i say vintage anatomy textbooks, faded pictures of the half blueness of the veins in my our these known empty parts of hearts but before i can settle the score) opens its eyes to a blueness,
morning like a stab of sincerity -

__that tonight is a dreamscape galleon floating , and that if you concentrate you can feel the warmth of stars pinpricks on your face when you wake left marks you have freckles, single-manned galleons and epic shrouds of darkness (when i cried i told her i couldn't sense if i was falling or rising, she said maybe it was neither, i said that maybe it was both)

____and tonight itself walks besides me,
pens and empty cans and tissue boxes are its teeth and
(as usual she reminds me i have lost myself mid sentence again ,
ran out of words, or ran out in front of them,

the forefront of life distance love humanity improbapossibility is silence, __and i ____sit ,
___________________________________________________out on a ledge
___________________________________________________kissing time
__________________________________________________and waiting
________________________________________________for my bones
________________________________________________to catch up.

meanwhile, books lapdance their stories and yapping girls in
giggly dresses with erect heels and nail polish crawl out from
behind every 3am and blow you kisses you're impotent to catch.

27 years and you don't got a story to help us pass tha time?
i always thought 27 years the story's been passing me along
you make no sense kid.


the Dr says it's good you came,
i ask him if it's a game of win or lose
and he says games you can't win at you can't lose at,
but before i finish smiling he says but maybe it's no game.

when you wake up you got two hours in the dollar and an amphetamine headache and a missed-call your girlfriend wants to know what gravity drags you through 3, 4, 5am or if it's just that you eat sunrise for breakfast.


you definitely got nothing to say kid, which is to say you probably are nothing

if only words knew the same stories as silence

but this is no life for dreams.

is it.