1. |
Behindhand
01:41
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We walked together
down crack-ridden sidewalks.
As we moved
the weeds that grew
through the concrete
brushed the ends of our shoes.
It didn’t take long
to notice that I had
a limp in one leg.
Your eyebrow rose
every time my weight went down;
I think someone snuck a
thumbtack between my sole and sock.
We’d laugh before I winced
and I’d wince before we’d laugh.
It was always an equal count,
just shuffled up so sometimes it looked
better –or worse- than it was.
But it was always split up equally.
The sidewalks twisted and turned,
until it forked down the middle.
You went your way
and I went mine.
It wasn’t until I was walking alone
when I realized
that half of the time
I was being myself,
the other half
I was reacting to pain.
As the blood slid
between my toes
I wished my realization
would have come sooner,
it may have made our walk
a little better.
Maybe tipped the scales
to the side of laughter.
But great epiphanies
never really seem to
come on time.
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2. |
Want
02:39
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Who wants something simple and real?
Like kissing on a park bench.
Who wants good and pure?
Not me anyhow.
The streetlight match was made like a hot knife through air,
Like a summer night serenade drenched in
cheap beer sweat and spent lottery tickets.
She barely knows my name
But it's not like we're any bigger than
a distraction from the surrounding world.
We've got no idea of the small things
like how the other did in high school
Or where our most noticeable scars came from
but we're both trying to not give a damn.
We dance like shadow puppets cast from
a hand full of broken fingers,
Just like five card stud all luck of the draw.
Miles from the first-date-glow
where everything is shining and new
we grab each other and touch
passed the tan lines,
forcibly finding way to
lose our virginity
for the four dozenth time.
We do what we have to right?
Like eating trucker speed and
white-washing our own self-delusions
until our consciences blink on and off
like the second letter on
this motel's no vacancy sign.
Whatever it takes to out-last another weekend and kill
the twisting pain that
is our deep down urge for the simple and real.
We try to make the inborn hunger pains
shut the hell up
so we can find some damn peace,
no matter how far the
glow wandered away from us
or how sticky and humid these
undying and suffocatingly hot
summer midnights throw themselves
across our tired tattooed skin.
We read the directions back to ourselves,
spit on the words and rub the letters
Until the ink blurs into
something other than solid and legible.
We want to be complacent with our bronze metal
and feel the third place victory as sweet as
the lies we pantomime forth and back
into the mirror because, in the end
we want more than anything to
simply stop wanting.
So here we go,
deep breath and honest eyes.
Game face through everything,
every single time...
After all who wants good and pure?
Not me anyhow.
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3. |
Life Broke Out
01:15
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The back of my
head rested on the
concrete wall behind us.
We sat where the
sidewalk met the bricks
and bits of grass
grew through to reach
for the sun that
had just gone down.
“If the whole reason
you started playing music
was to get girls,
why did you decide
to play Bass?”
I smiled slowly like
I was waiting to
hear a punchline. She
blew out one last
lung of smoke and
drew a black line
with the ash between
the two of us.
“Did you just plan on
standing quietly
on the side of the stage
until I showed up and
swept you off your feet?”
She smiled fast and
slyly like she had
a hundred times tonight.
Her bottom lip was
swollen from my biting
it just as frequently.
She slid her fingers
into mine and whispered
“Let’s go buy
a couple of records
we’ve never heard and
memorize every note
until we fall asleep
on your living room floor.”
She came from nowhere
like God and Punk
rock made a person.
Like street art and
honest love poetry.
Like grass growing through
concrete; life broke out.
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4. |
||||
I miss you
like the broken fury
of a thousand
autumn afternoons
Like the smell
of dead firewood
and the taste of
cigarettes on the
underbelly of a
burning sunset
I miss you
like the defiant cry
of being young
and drunk
Like the touch
of wrinkled cotton
and the site of
windows fogged in
the passenger seat of
my ex girlfriend’s SUV
I miss you
like I never
got sober
Like the credits
never rolled
Like I still
have reasons
to write you
I miss you
like I haven’t
seen you
every day
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5. |
Rewind
02:10
|
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We sat in the car
after dark and
rewound songs that
made it impossible to
not kiss each other.
I saw streetlight sing
across her perfect skin
when she asked me if
I would remember that
night when I got old.
I said that I would
and kissed her again.
It's taken some time
to figure it out but
it turns out I was right.
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6. |
Not Enough For Stitches
02:03
|
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My first real relationship
was with a girl almost
a foot shorter than me.
At fifteen years old
I'd conquered the world
and won the heart of
the hottest girl in the room.
I learned a lot
from those days.
Like how to kiss,
how to forgive,
how to forget
and how to
take a hit.
By seventeen I gaslit myself
into a definition of man and
gained intimate knowledge of
what my own blood tasted like.
I was nineteen when we broke up
because I couldn't get over
how she banged my friend and
some other guy from the mall.
We never
talked about
all the times
she hit me.
I had to
be a
real
man.
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7. |
||||
A hundred words (or less) for every life I’ve lived on every piece of asphalt scattered across every shade of these busted realities.
A hundred words for the times wasted, for the sunsets I ignored, for the late shifts and the nights when I fell asleep drunk.
A hundred words for the days I lived, for slow dances made, for records played and every set of arms I lived and died in.
A hundred words (or less) for every life I’ve lived on every piece of asphalt scattered across every shade of these busted realities.
I’ve loved you every time.
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8. |
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Forgive me for a second,
I'm trying to string together
the parts of my memory
that age wants to
keep from me.
One night,
after we realized that
our relationship was done,
I walked over to your house
right when the sun was setting.
We didn't say much of anything,
only sat sharing cigarettes
until the sun went down.
Just you and I,
being there.
I'm sorry.
Sorry it took me so long to
just shut up and be your friend.
I wish it was something I'd got
the knack of before we fell in love.
We could have skipped out on
my passive aggression and
done something better
than gapping up this
last decade.
|
Scott Jensen Anderson, South Carolina
I write a bit and sometimes record them into spoken word.
Read more of my writing at: scottjensen.wordpress.com
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