... (V)A Poem by Ookpikhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-fuFd4GXc&ab_channel=bonjr. . . I . It was midnight, midnight He knew Because the blinking red-lines Of his dollar store, digital alarm-clock Were flashing from his bedside table: . . 11:59 11:59 . 12:00 . 12:01 . . II . He wasn’t exactly accustomed to this room, it was strange to
him But he’d lived in many like it - he’d spent his teenaged
years In a room not unlike this one, quiet, often smokier Than it ought to’ve been, with a midnight moon Just like tonight’s Peering in From the blinds, swaying, Beside the crack that he’d left in his window. . He could breathe, then, and smell the summer flora Through that gap: the
smell of opening flowers, Rhododendrons, azaleas, Lilacs, The peeling of arbutus, the waft of fresh cut grass. . He’d never really cared much for flowers But he cared about that smell - cared about The way it’d transport him, The way it superimposed pictures Against the ones he thought he’d forgotten. . . III . It smelt like that again, at midnight, tonight, On this night - it smelled like he remembered it to smell, Like summer, like growing things. . It was a room both foreign and familiar to him And he stepped, out, onto the balcony With that strange cognizance Coating the inside of his nostrils, thickening Against the walls of his throat, The tired, crust and edges of his eyelids. . He smoked cigarettes, now. He didn’t before - When he was a teenager he smoked something else - And when he lit a fresh one, creaking from its place within
the pack, The smell that he’d attached himself to Prior Grew suddenly, eerily distant. . And he puffed, and hoped that it’d come back to him. But it didn’t. And the water he’d been holding behind his
eyes Crept gently to the surface. And he tucked his head, Thought about how far he’d come And puffed again. . And he’d stand that way, in the moonlight, Smoke billowing from the railing And his nearby neighbors Wondering After the sound of a dripping faucet, . And he’d puff, and pretend there was a kitchen window Open somewhere . That wasn’t. . . IV . But he knew it had to do with the smell - With the imprinted youth that he associated with it, The feelings that used to fester Inside his old room, the sounds that would emanate From beyond its enclosed walls. . . V . He didn’t know why it made him so sad, He wasn’t really sure of its nature. Truth be told, it felt wrong to him - Like he was succumbing to an impulse that he shouldn’t have
been - . An old weakness that he’d since buried, held a wake for, Nailed a makeshift cross into. . And he’d bite down on the faucet, And the cigarette, and the railing Of his balcony, puff, as though it were A pacifier And it might alleviate His mistake. . . VI . And he’d make a little pact with god, Under the moonlight, there, Before going back inside . A promise, to revisit that smell Every summer, from other rooms, In other places, So as lest not to forget: . All the lengths he’d come And all the things he’d seen, He’d been given one more summer And was alive, yet, for one more year . With the means to feel another. . . . © 2022 Ookpik |
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Added on May 17, 2022 Last Updated on June 16, 2022 Author |