wordplayground

the words got stuck
on their way out, yes somewhere
somewhere between the lips and the voice
they never stopped, only jumbled
into meaninglessness and apathy
unable to force cohesion, these words
were not even mine, only remnants
of a language by default
if you rearrange this, 
could you make it your own?
could you filter me out? could you
even evoke happiness from these words?
then you would have to know me,
but remember, remember
i still don't even know myself

pablo neruda has sat by my bed now for weeks.
neruda who i loved for his passion,
the way he could mold words around your tongue,

Entre los labios y la voz, algo se va muriendo.
Algo con alas de pájaro, algo de angustia y de olvido.
Así como las redes no retienen el agua.

and the way you could feel the ecstasy
as the words wrapped around the page, in a moment
you could see neruda hunched over writing, 
wet ink mixed with the smell of sex and the wetness
of the woman he writes of this time. so much sex

Quiero hacer contigo
lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.

and love in every page.  neruda who was always
falling in love, so you put him on a shelf
for so long, with everyone else who could do that
sort of thing, like love.

i want to sit you down
ask three thousand questions
because
i don't understand
where the hate comes from.
i don't understand
how you put together
those words
in that order
to say the most hurtful
hateful angry things.
i don't understand
how you're making sense
of this
in your head.
i don't understand
the sadness and isolation
lack of self or love
that must be rotting away
inside you.

if i danced,
(literally speaking)
i might dance like a dervish.
i would just possibly fall, 
madly.

what was it i was looking for?
i said i was busy filling a role
(christian, straight, vegan, gay, non-christian)
a role someone else created.
yes, i remember,
"i keep thinking i have to be something,
i have to have a definition."
so was i looking for something in particular,
or just to eliminate those boundaries?
was it a sex i wanted?
did it even have to do with sex?

if only the ants on the ground could walk straight. dear mother, that's where things actually went wrong.