Monologue #4 Poem by RIC BASTASA

the market is your hiding place.
you buy everything. Leaves. Roots.
buds.
the vendors please you.
the prices are haggling. you love it.
i write.
the words, letters, phrases are my
safe-houses.
i am all too exposed to darkness
look at the color of my skin.
bruised blue.
i wonder if i can be under the sun this morning.
what happens to my bones?
they are turning into powder.
nothing holds my flesh
my nerves are scattered like powdered pepper.
i like to blind you and make you sneeze
perhaps, you will know that i exist now?
i don't exist. i live.
do you know the difference?
you live in the shallow waters. you have all your fun.
i am inside the deep ocean
grappling for breath.
i pray to God to turn me into a whale.
i like to live a hundred more years and be in
every continent.
In my own way of mystifying
beautifying
loneliness.
you have arrived finally with a basket of vegetables.
the room smells like a salad of broccoli and radish and
and lettuce.
i am a letter under the cover of a poem.
you are angry.
and you do not look for me.
i will be in a coffeehouse tonight and they will find me.
they will read.