Voices: Psychedelia And Hope Poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr

And there was a book that rested

Idly, as it made subtle stenches

Of rancor – That of the foliage

That bends with the wind.

It was Franny and Zooey

By JD Salinger, and I loved it

Ardently as I have loved

Equations and how they assume

To have solved every conundrum.

My mom walked towards me,

As I was half-asleep and said,

Thomas, you do not reek of cigarettes anymore.

I am proud of you.

Shaking, raspy voice garnered:

I quit my semicidal heavens.

Of synthetic bliss –

Of a fazed ambiguity –

I worship my Gods now,

As I am half-asleep,

I am fully awake,

With the breath of hope though

There is no hope,

And the idea of hoping

Scares me more than you’ll ever know.

And my mother smiled the earnest,

And my father frowned meagerly

Which is a sign of approval,

A vital sign of life found in me,

And my mom signaled that we should perhaps

Eat breakfast and get dressed

And go to the psychologist,

So he could examine me.

By the clinic’s door,

I quivered in my steps.

I fumbled in my speech,

As I confessed my fears –

I cowered and shrank

Because I am predisposed to

Falsified judgments.

And my mom recognized my fears,

And she stood beside me, yielding

The distance between my withered hand

And the door.

As we headed inside, the clinic

Had the same stench of medications

And other potent substances, and equipment

Fresh from the factory itself.

I sat down, and the psychologist said,

Hello Thomas. How are you?

Different. Indifferent. Indifferent, for a while,

I guess. It seemed right.

Well, that is good. Do you know the reason behind this?

I just woke up,

And cigarettes do nothing anymore,

And alcohol did nothing further

But damage all of me.

I woke up,

And the medications scare me

The therapies cast me away into the unknown.

The twinge, the trepidation, the pain

They were flushed deep within me.

And he nodded, with a gentle grin, which I decoded to be

A gesture of progress, which I accepted fairly.



You quit your vices? You’re doing great progress, Thomas.

Can you show me your latest poem?

The poem reads:

The petrichor gently stifles,

As I am safely tucked within my blanket.

I blanched my fingernails for signs of life,

And they do not portray the sepulchral hue.

I prayed to my God, just like any other man

Who is as pious as a saint cast into the sea,

That may He transform tomorrow into a

Golden slice of infatuated morning – not the azure,

For I am tired of the barren skies and tapestries.

I am resigning everything:

Cigarettes, tar, nicotine –

Alcohol, stale wine –

Night wails, daily woes, wretched stifling daggers inside –

What is this?

This is a foreign feeling,

And I like it.

And the psychologist said,

“I shall hang this on my bulletin board, Thomas.”

With a smile that suggests sensation.

My mother, behind me, held my shoulders

With yet, another blinding smile –

Why are they smiling?

Perhaps, because while they were reading the poem,

I was smiling, too.