I'm a student with a short attention span

this is one of my longest poems, please bear through it--I really appreciate it, broke it up in sections.

I.

 

The radio alarm dragged my feet to the floor, truly

horrible to follow my body through dark to wak,

but such is this morning, such is the morning, such is normalcy

in anger at my missing left sock, lost in some

tight spiral of bedsheet like Iowa shadows

caught in conbines.  But, two socks or one f*****g

sock, I still have my 9 a.m. class splashing

against my back as I lean into shower steam, sensing something

not less but more unequivical, like

my right sock licking the shower floor.

 

II.

 

The world hasn't moved and won't move

until I step out of the shower and down

into the dry extend of my towel, but

two more minutes sense my *mammalian diving

reflex so I write myself into an 'n'

in the bottom margin of the shower, some broken

absence of a thought sliding down my

shin.  I'd pocket raindrops and

press them in messages, if I was (desperate) able.

Then I could find stillness under every

thought, like the way my body

compresses itself into knots.  What if

today the water pounds through my skin and traps

itself there, inside of everything I drowned?

 

III.

 

Sometimes, while tying my star-tattooed converse shoe laces,

I regret burying my feet, trapping my soles

beneath all I am.  They press gravity behind

my heels, refusing to wait for the self

that rides in my shadow looking for

rain to delineate every non-green thing,

like blowing grey from ashtrays into

duck-weed.  Suddenly the horizon

concaves and presses against my pupils.  Scared?

No, smiling I push across Earth,

sidewalk cracking my converse up the hill

to class.  My legs in automode, my mind brain-fogged, a sense

of rain stretched behind it's obvious absence,

and my eyelashes curl like dry water lilies.

 

IV.

 

Distraction is an unintentional attempt to excuse

yourself from unwanted moments, like most

lectures, like this lecture, always this class.

I cut the anchor--lecture is over for me

as I float lonely between colors of the sea

built from lost rain growing under my eyelids.

Know this: I am well experienced in the art of

daydreaming, of emptying the world from inside

me, losing my navigator to the exit.  Yes,

I believe in turning myself inside-out

and leaving foot-smacks after stepping in puddles

as my body takes me flopping along.  I believe

in those and the monster doodled on my

notes which tries to claw colors into its three

eyes like dropping my shoes into the depth

beneath my fist--this shall pass like

hair hiding my blank eyes from the teacher

so she can't see I'm rid of there, lost

here among the squelching of absurdity and as

the lecture fades through a kaledescope I'm

wathing the floor bloom with puddles that

spread like lily pads til they swallow each

other and become one giant drop, something

fallen from some storm.  Flowers pop through

the flourescent lighting, drop glass petals while normalcy

hides under my heel.

 

V.

 

It is then, in this bubble-pop of my life

that my poet-self finally drifts ashore

as I realize all the colors swarming and

crashing are inverted eclipses turned quiet

and into cosmic expanse when I close my eyes.

And then, I drift again, thrown to a new, broader

shore where nothing was normalcy.  The world

is a de-lidded eyeball cut from my monster

and left to drift in space, lost and spinning

free from the face it served.  How can I

continue explaining the desolation o the

divorced world other than drown this lecture

in the only thing left to it's vision: pinpricks

of light, the lost debris of something forgotten, something not of normalcy.

Author's Note

Wrote this in college--revisiting it.
*mammalian diving reflex: "A reflexive response to diving in many aquatic mammals and birds, characterized by physiological changes that decrease oxygen consumption, such as slowed heart rate and decreased blood flow to the abdominal organs and muscles, until breathing resumes. Though less pronounced, the reflex also occurs in certain nonaquatic animals, including humans, upon submersion in water." - thefreedictionary.com

Reviews

[Shmoke-Sifted Heftlande..]

this is mind-blowing.
It has a couple typos in it and what not
but that is all easily fixable

"refusing to wait for the self
that rides in my shadow looking for
rain to delineate every non-green thing,
like blowing grey from ashtrays into
duck-weed. Suddenly the horizon
concaves and presses against my pupils."...
and the shadows getting caught in combines, butter
best missing sock metaphor, ever
I was a lil grossed out when it licked
the bathroom floor though, haha, but I laughed
it takes a lot more to gross me out actually
I wish I had the imagination to escape my
reality, this acutely and thoroughly, at times..
maybe I'd have made it through college
severe sleep deprivation pushes me into this state
but it's an unpleasant highway full of scorpions
anyway, wish I had a cleverer/more relevant review to do this
masterpiece better justice

[AndyJCash]

Having literally just got back home from my first year of University I can totally relate to this poem. Everything from getting up early and showering to daydreaming in lectures and just trying to make it through until the end.I really like the descriptions and imagery used, my personal favourite being the blooming puddles spreading like lily pads.
I only have a couple of thoughts. You use normalcy 3 times in the poem overall. I'd be interested to see a different word replace it in the penultimate stanza (I think it works fine with use in both the first and last stanza). Also, in the penultimate stanza from 'I believe...' to 'fallen from from some storm' I think some added punctuation would help. There are a few bits in there but I still found myself begging for a breath.
Still, an ace piece of work. Any imaginative/creative student will find a piece of themselves in this poem!

[Wild Willow Blue]

Wow. Your are gifted, for sure. "Distraction is an unwanted attempt to excuse yourself," my favorite line. I love the simplicity I find hidden throughout here. It's very refreshing. Great work.

I think you might enjoy my longest poem, "Back When I Felt"