tallonrk1
02-21-2016, 10:42 PM
I went to the only park near me today.
It’s February.
It’s 70 degrees outside.
The wind threatens to knock me off the stone bridge
I sit on.
For two months I have been
stuck in the dormitory.
I had forgotten that there are bubbles
in water.
I had forgotten that a half-frozen pond
looks like yin and yang.
Water splashes against thin ice
but the ice is unmoved. The moving
and the stationary. These are two promises
of life.
Feeling stationary while the world keeps moving.
I empathize with the ice as I
stay tense against the wind’s
greatest efforts to throw me
off-course.
We all know who wins here.
We all know that nothing is
perfectly balanced— one side always
has an edge.
Even here, there is humanity
moving: the crushed beer can
on the bank of the river.
The toilet paper strewn
through empty tree branches.
The man-made path and the man-made
steps outlining the pond.
If I look up,
there is a large metal bridge
that threatens to crush me
every time I hear a car run across it.
I wish it would.
I wouldn’t have to go back to the dorm
and face a boy who doesn’t love me,
wouldn’t have to face the pile
of homework that I increasingly neglect.
Wouldn’t have to see the same streets
and the same buses
and the same buildings
I see every day.
A group of ten college students
attach a plastic chair to a long red rope
hanging from the bridge’s bottom.
They swing out on the chair
to where the slope drops off.
If the rope were to give out,
someone would die or be severely injured.
I have already decided
that I would not help them
if that happens.
Even here, the wind
breaks my face into tears. This is the only way
I let it move me. The emotional against
the physical.
A woman picks up a stone
out of the river.
I hate her for moving it.
February will return
tomorrow. Though it feels
like it never left.
A leaf is helpless
against the river’s current.
I cannot tell if it feels free
or not.
I expect someone to push
me off the stone bridge
into the river
before the wind can.
It’s February.
It’s 70 degrees outside.
The wind threatens to knock me off the stone bridge
I sit on.
For two months I have been
stuck in the dormitory.
I had forgotten that there are bubbles
in water.
I had forgotten that a half-frozen pond
looks like yin and yang.
Water splashes against thin ice
but the ice is unmoved. The moving
and the stationary. These are two promises
of life.
Feeling stationary while the world keeps moving.
I empathize with the ice as I
stay tense against the wind’s
greatest efforts to throw me
off-course.
We all know who wins here.
We all know that nothing is
perfectly balanced— one side always
has an edge.
Even here, there is humanity
moving: the crushed beer can
on the bank of the river.
The toilet paper strewn
through empty tree branches.
The man-made path and the man-made
steps outlining the pond.
If I look up,
there is a large metal bridge
that threatens to crush me
every time I hear a car run across it.
I wish it would.
I wouldn’t have to go back to the dorm
and face a boy who doesn’t love me,
wouldn’t have to face the pile
of homework that I increasingly neglect.
Wouldn’t have to see the same streets
and the same buses
and the same buildings
I see every day.
A group of ten college students
attach a plastic chair to a long red rope
hanging from the bridge’s bottom.
They swing out on the chair
to where the slope drops off.
If the rope were to give out,
someone would die or be severely injured.
I have already decided
that I would not help them
if that happens.
Even here, the wind
breaks my face into tears. This is the only way
I let it move me. The emotional against
the physical.
A woman picks up a stone
out of the river.
I hate her for moving it.
February will return
tomorrow. Though it feels
like it never left.
A leaf is helpless
against the river’s current.
I cannot tell if it feels free
or not.
I expect someone to push
me off the stone bridge
into the river
before the wind can.