poetry

Roommates

~ jack lee taylor ~ Leave a comment

Finally.

You’re awake.

Yeah. It’s crazy.

We’re locked up in a room together.

You. Me. That stranger huddling against the wall.

You can stop searching. I’ve already tried. For hours. There’s no way out of this place. This room. It’s really more of a box, actually.

You, I know. I’ve seen you before. Once or twice.

I got you. Get you, I mean. That stranger over there, I don’t know. And I’m nervous because it’s just sitting there quietly in the corner rocking back and forth — hiding its face from us.

I was thinking of getting up and poking it on the shoulder, but I don’t know what it will do to me. You want to give it a try?

Here. Take this. In case it tries to attack, you can defend yourself against it — whatever it is.

Don’t look at me. I don’t want to touch it.

Is the room getting smaller?

Seriously.

Did you hear that? It said something, I think.

I have no idea.

It smells…funny. No, I’m not being mean. It smells different. Well, you smell different, too. But I don’t like the way it smells. Or looks. It’s so…not right.

Why?

Why did you just do that?

Make it stop. Make it stop crying!

Stop it! Shut up! SHUT UP!

What? No. I can’t believe you. Why did you do that? Don’t touch me. Please. Just stay away from me.

Why did you have to kill it? Why?

I know what I said. I just…

I didn’t know what it was.

I just didn’t know.

THE END

© Jack Lee Taylor 2017

 

trauma

 

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Ill Met

~ jack lee taylor ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know you.

The softness between the ridges of bone. Tender spots I’ll never know.

Was it a fleeting glance, or a rotting glare?

Maybe a bump against shoulders. A middle finger shared between cars.

How could it be from so much distance that we are strangers?

You and your language — I don’t understand it.

Your peace and fury — so different from mine.

Even with separate mothers and fathers, and all that makes us different…

do you long for a smile from me?

Do you wish for revelation as to why you are there and I am here?

We eat and breathe. We sleep and dream.

We die.

But all of it never at the same time.

Sea foam splashing on the crags; our tides ripple with different paces.

And the ghost of chance bites us with cold teeth.

In that second of warmth, could we find each other?

Or else, pass one another waving arms, faces full of tears and thoughts of what might have been?

The answer to these questions are revealed with time.

A time without you.

 

Head

~ jack lee taylor ~ Leave a comment

A smattering of saliva

wetting salty lips

stale with memories.

Protruding tongue

licking the taste of regret.

Eyes darkening,

denying sunlight.

Lifted by his hair.

Weightless and draining.

Fist opens.

The falling ball.

The rolling melon.

Colony of grit

on the stump of his neck.

Eventual rest.

Face down.

On sand.

Licking.

Licking.

Licking.

 

 

 

JLT