Day Twenty Two

Title: i try for years

This poem goes with the dream series I blogged about on Day Twenty. It was a real dream, as dark and real as anything. What I remember most about the dream was my inability to speak to him, to say anything meaningful. I suppose real life with him was like that, too. It wasn't so much a speechlessness as a mind-tripping kind of self-censorship. I always felt like nothing I had to say was smart enough or witty enough or whatever enough. I could not compete with him.

It's been years, and every time I see him it's the same. I fall silent and flat.

***

Dream of my complicit silence

He’s sitting there
in the middle of the pub,
the empty Irish pub, picking
at a Spanish guitar.

Once, he told me his father
was an alcoholic, is an alcoholic,
he told my hair, which was
bunched in his hands and dying.
He told me in the dark.

The guitar is not important.

He’s alone and I’m
alone in the pub and I try
to say something. I try for
years while dust collects
on the windowsill.

I follow him
when he leaves.

What’s important is the flask
in his left pocket.

I don’t know how to tell him
to stop.