The Berlin Wall

Another post-college slam poem

 

Flesh of my flesh, heart of my heart, bone of my bones,

We’ve always been less alike together then alone

And you’ve got secrets enough to fill up the catacombs

With whispers and wantings and words you’ll never own

And you took on some secrets of my own

Held them as tight and as silent as the houses we called home.

And you’re still hoarding them, despite of what I say.

And I’d ask for a song or a speech or a phone call that could reach you

But all the words I have are poems and pleas,

And that’s never been enough to bridge the gap between you and me

Not even when we were young and naïve

And forgetting lines between like and love

So this is not a poem for you, but about you

For everyone slipping and sliding down a slope of

What couldshouldwould be

Possibilities of a life we’re told shouldn’t be seen

Half glances and just maybe

Toeing the line, I never learned to ask for just enough

Always wanting more then is socially acceptable, accepting the inevitable freefall and forfeited friendship

What else could I expect, exceptions to the rule? I’ve never had that kind of luck, but hell—love’s given fortune for less.

And, oh, She was the devastation of first love, The hesitation anticipation trepidation waiting for the degradation of all the barriers we built to last through lulls in laughs but never touches, the press pause and breath pick it up and go go go if we move fast enough we won’t remember why we decided this was a VERY BAD IDEA to fall in love with your best friend. Beat yourself up, fall apart, start it over and over and over again and who were we at the beginning of this?

More innocent, more similar, less bitter.

Those were your words, two am tenuous conversations dancing between truths.

And it’s an image I’ll never lose

Two girls in a pool under a full moon

Ripples reaching thighs and sides I’d never touch

Intensity just one notch below ‘too much’

Perfection as fleeting as anything but more poignant then most

Because you cared when they saw what they’d say

And I was never scared of walking away.

And you had a voice that was harsh

And carried criticisms over crowds

You said,

You build castles on the transitory transubstantiation of H2O from liquid to gas to something seemingly solid, held in the hand of what anyone other than you would call God.

I say, yes, I build castles on clouds,

Not just any clouds,

No princess clouds of glitter and peace

But thick, heavy, forbidding clouds whose wind could bear Loki from the underground seas,

Angry-faced clouds the spark and rumble and roar,

That break open and bleed the torrential downpour,

Who settle and sign and nourish the earth.

You said I killed your dreams but I killed my own,

So that yours could give birth.

And I’ve got a dream where we don’t use different words for the same thing,

No more language barrier like the Berlin Wall

But just a line on a country on a globe on a stand,

One of those lamps that illuminates both ocean and land,

Where I can hold both East and West Germany, whole, in the palm of my hand.

Where language doesn’t matter,

Because if I ever traced love poems on your shoulders in runes you can’t read,

I think you’d still know what I mean.

But we never touched, and now we don’t speak,

And I’d ask for a song or a speech or a phone call that could reach you

But all the words I have are poems and pleas,

And that’s never been enough to bridge the gap between you and me

So it’s 1988, the wall’s still tall

I’ve never been afraid of leaving,

And I’ve always hated to wait.

 

Reviews

[S.E. Conway]

this is wonderful