Newspaper Poem by Alison Rosalie

Theories and thoughts, the self-psychoanalyses,
toss around in cargo transport,
careening over the disproportionate waves
in a constant contrast of black over white.
And in the static oh the words are hard to hear.
I feel them wrenching, commiserating in my gut,
bubbling over, gurgling pleas and apologies,
and I try to write the words in beautiful cursive lines
when my heart is screaming a scribbled mess,
and inevitably the thoughts, they all evaporate.
I remember trying to write you,
trying to describe you in one perfect metaphor –
“you are like a spaceship to me…”
and I could find no words to follow but
this is the way I see it:
I hear you in every lyric on the radio when I am attending to every customer I see you in.
and I always walk around without my clothes and wish you were there to observe me without yours.
But there are times
when the tugging strings of my brain
yank and restrain,
twist and tangle me in straightjacket fashion;
I forget about my timid heart in a lull somewhere at the lonely hub of it all,
whispering, “you know I really like you, I do,
but sometimes you are just so quiet I forget it’s you…”
Maybe one day lying in your bed I kissed you so hard I bit your tongue
and now you refuse to use it?
but I know I feel the weight of the moments holding us down (oh the me that is 'us') ,
the pushing of past defeats,
the lost and dead memories.
And now I just can’t write your exact notes,
I can’t put you down on paper
‘cause you just won’t stay still,
and, now
you don’t even hold my hand if my head isn’t going down on yours.
And still I swear you’re not a part of the sadness,
but you’re suited to be all around me
and the smell of your skin drives me crazy;
when I am not privileged to be with you,
I find I’m not the only crisis contorting me.