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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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JAMES BABBS
1983 I kept thinking he should have been there when I graduated from high school but my brother was killed the previous year when he got drunk and drove his car off the road the week before final exams at the end of my junior year and suddenly everybody wanted to treat me like I was made out of glass my homeroom teacher taking me aside asking me if I felt okay and was I ready to take my tests I told him yes without looking in his eyes because I just wanted to get them over with and finish off the school year so I didn't have to walk through the halls anymore feeling like everybody was staring at me it was the same thing when those girls showed up at the visitation those same girls who never wanted anything to do with me before hugging me with tears in their eyes and I wonder what they would have done if I had tried to kiss them pressing their warm bodies against me holding them a little too long until they grew uncomfortable trying to make them understand just how I felt Until the light comes it's not morning until the light comes bursting through the windows screaming with silence until I open my eyes just another hangover another hard-on pressing against the sheets and I was dreaming of bodies mouths wide open swallowing the darkness one piece at a time my hard-on straining lifting from my body yearning for some kind of relief but finding nothing and the loneliness leaning into me the pain behind my eyes begins to throb and when I roll over my hard-on stabs at the mattress and I give it a couple of thrusts before giving it up and start kicking off the sheets the cool air touching my skin my hard-on fading and I think I'm ready to get out of bed It Happens I catch myself thinking about her and this is how it happens this morning after the storm has blown through and I'm sitting here eating my breakfast the voices on the radio coming from the next room and through the window I can see the sky still looking ominous and gray and I wonder if she's doing okay and does she still look beautiful but I know she does and I wonder does she ever think about me and the rain starting to fall Drinking Myself to Sleep it's easier this way not having to fight the whole night and the first time I close my eyes I watch you waving goodbye driving past in your shiny black car the taillights like two red eyes staring at me for miles and I hear music in my head coming from somewhere outside and the second time I close my eyes you're just a voice on the telephone turning to static in my ears every time you start telling me something the words get lost and there's nothing good on the radio anymore it's always the same old songs played over and over again and the last time when I close my eyes there's only the photograph of what you should have looked like the empty space in the bed where you no longer were You're In My Mind saturday night and I know it's getting late but I want to keep drinking I don't want to lose this drunkenness I don't want to hear your voice anymore I don't want to feel you again I keep thinking maybe I can drink enough until I don't feel anything at all and I just want a few more hours then maybe I can sleep without dreaming maybe I can wake up to a whole new morning and this time this time you'll be gone James Babb's recent poems have appeared in his dreams and in Abbey, Barbaric Yawp, Decomp, Hazmat Review and Main Street Rag. |
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© 2008 Underground Voices |
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