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comas with stupid grins

by Gabriel Ricard

One of those falling dreams,
but I never make any forward progress in it,
and so everything I can see on the ground
looks about the same.

If I were moving,
if common sense was on hand,
I would almost be ready to greet where I’m going.

Doesn’t matter that the wind is crisp enough
to push me into that one teenage night in August
when someone showed me rope play.

I can barely keep my eyes open,
and my mind is ready to make amends
to every evening when I wasn’t at my best.

But I’m stationary,
and the static of anticipation,
even if it’s the desperation for something dreadful,
is killing me in the way it always does.

But I can witness everything down below,
and the report coming back up to me
is so unaware of itself that I wish I knew how to get back
to the bedroom of someone who wanted me to leave hours ago.

What I can see is not a city of the future. I don’t think anyone
was even buying that back in the day.

What I do see are the towers. They’re cold, smooth blocks
with dozens and dozens of yellow eyes that walk and talk
like gargoyles with missing features.

The smaller towers were simply there for variety.
They were made to worship and suffer in the depths of glory.

Not a single walking disaster.
Not one solitary living legend.
Not even a burlesque girl who was very rational
the morning she killed her parents.

I have never seen a single person on those streets.

And I know there’s no one inside those buildings.
And I know there’s no one actually inside the thousands
of cars humming and dreaming along highways
that look more giants exploding into confetti
than anything that would take anyone anywhere.

And I know that if I were to ever touch the ground
that I would be fine, better than ever,
and I would never find my way out.

Trying to get run over wouldn’t help.

I haven’t landed yet.
I don’t want to. I don’t want the dream itself either,
but I have even less control over that.

Anyone ever tell you about the last time I woke up?
Opened my eyes, and someone was trying to push me
in front of a speeding taxi in a Chinatown that didn’t look familiar.

A woman,
my wife in a whole other series of comas with stupid grins
was off to the side screaming about being too good for me.

I had plans for the day that I was going to abandon,
and I had already gone weeks without writing anything.

Basically,
yeah,
pretty much,
nothing ever changes. Usually doesn’t.

02/11/2013

Posted on 02/11/2013
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard

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