Providence (from senior project)
You are the city.
You are teenagers lying, maybe reading or writing, in the grass; blue book in your hand or palm to your cheek. You are the delicacies of the afternoon, bathed in the warm light of summer. I could almost take a bite from it, could almost taste the cherries in her hair, lime- or maybe watermelon-flavored Jell-O in those vivacious blades of grass.
5 AM hits. You are sprinklers ejaculating at dawn, climaxing for what seems like minutes or even hours, but was only the slow blink of an eye, the sedated stirring of coffee, a half-empty packet of sugar tossed into a trash can. You are light coming from nowhere, leaving no shadows, no regrets. You are happy hour, lights out, 5:30 Dunkin Donuts, empty streets. You are a nap or maybe a farewell in the intersection of Thayer and a name you forgot, or never knew. The traffic light changes, nothing moves.
You are stores closing at 2 AM; a glance over the shoulder, down the street. Curfew’s a funny thing. You are a living city now, asleep for the moment, still safer than the days before the Prince. You are signs of this newfound safety surrounding: gleaming blue lights and the nod of a security guard. You are the absence of a fear for your family, yourself, your florist, the man you see riding his bicycle up Thayer St. every morning…
Someone shot him, you know. Last week, or a week before last summer. But that is nothing. You weren’t listening hard enough to hear the week-old echo of a gunshot, only hard enough for the locations of the nearest ATMs and a dismissal, and then you were gone, out the door to scribble down those ideas you always wanted, hoping to capture a moment before it’s gone.
You are the dull thud of a bass rising up from headphones that sound like the ocean, the drums that sneak in to tap you on the shoulder, kiss your cheek, then twist through the membranes in your head, mapping out the streets you plan to take that night as you stroll the sidewalks in search of a free slice of pizza, a drawing in black ink. You are the color of eyelids closed in the humidity, the color of the dark, the color of the sound, the ripples in a grey-green shirt I want to touch, maybe cling on to for a moment, maybe hold his hand.
You are the lips that crossed out the words I wanted to hear; the mouth that formed the syllables that made pocketeer, lockateer; long shock of hair; or eyes I couldn’t meet.
Your laziness, your tranquility and your haziness become the crosshatching of streets; the bridges on Waterman and maybe Memorial; the canal-called-river; the lack of pigeons; the sound of a saxophone dancing through the ambience; the smell of fireworks from a park on a hill; a bonfire waiting upon a corridor of dead fish, belly-up amid empty bottles, cigarette butts. You are the uneven faces and distorted cobblestones, the pedestrians stepping lightly around puddles.
I would sit on the steps beside your wretched river and reconsider why I still love you: your orange eyes and saxophonic tendencies. I followed your whistles and whispers, you called me there into the night, as hands clasped, lovers roamed and no one noticed my internal passion for such a spotless town. Your clean streets; swollen pigeons missing, no nauseous rainbow polka-dots rippling on feathered necks.
You are teenagers lying, maybe reading or writing, in the grass; blue book in your hand or palm to your cheek. You are the delicacies of the afternoon, bathed in the warm light of summer. I could almost take a bite from it, could almost taste the cherries in her hair, lime- or maybe watermelon-flavored Jell-O in those vivacious blades of grass.
5 AM hits. You are sprinklers ejaculating at dawn, climaxing for what seems like minutes or even hours, but was only the slow blink of an eye, the sedated stirring of coffee, a half-empty packet of sugar tossed into a trash can. You are light coming from nowhere, leaving no shadows, no regrets. You are happy hour, lights out, 5:30 Dunkin Donuts, empty streets. You are a nap or maybe a farewell in the intersection of Thayer and a name you forgot, or never knew. The traffic light changes, nothing moves.
You are stores closing at 2 AM; a glance over the shoulder, down the street. Curfew’s a funny thing. You are a living city now, asleep for the moment, still safer than the days before the Prince. You are signs of this newfound safety surrounding: gleaming blue lights and the nod of a security guard. You are the absence of a fear for your family, yourself, your florist, the man you see riding his bicycle up Thayer St. every morning…
Someone shot him, you know. Last week, or a week before last summer. But that is nothing. You weren’t listening hard enough to hear the week-old echo of a gunshot, only hard enough for the locations of the nearest ATMs and a dismissal, and then you were gone, out the door to scribble down those ideas you always wanted, hoping to capture a moment before it’s gone.
You are the dull thud of a bass rising up from headphones that sound like the ocean, the drums that sneak in to tap you on the shoulder, kiss your cheek, then twist through the membranes in your head, mapping out the streets you plan to take that night as you stroll the sidewalks in search of a free slice of pizza, a drawing in black ink. You are the color of eyelids closed in the humidity, the color of the dark, the color of the sound, the ripples in a grey-green shirt I want to touch, maybe cling on to for a moment, maybe hold his hand.
You are the lips that crossed out the words I wanted to hear; the mouth that formed the syllables that made pocketeer, lockateer; long shock of hair; or eyes I couldn’t meet.
Your laziness, your tranquility and your haziness become the crosshatching of streets; the bridges on Waterman and maybe Memorial; the canal-called-river; the lack of pigeons; the sound of a saxophone dancing through the ambience; the smell of fireworks from a park on a hill; a bonfire waiting upon a corridor of dead fish, belly-up amid empty bottles, cigarette butts. You are the uneven faces and distorted cobblestones, the pedestrians stepping lightly around puddles.
I would sit on the steps beside your wretched river and reconsider why I still love you: your orange eyes and saxophonic tendencies. I followed your whistles and whispers, you called me there into the night, as hands clasped, lovers roamed and no one noticed my internal passion for such a spotless town. Your clean streets; swollen pigeons missing, no nauseous rainbow polka-dots rippling on feathered necks.
posted by sprocketwings at 7:48 AM
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