november fifth, twenty four

“November fifth, twenty four”

People are always asking
“Where were you on this day?”

Well, the answer is pretty simple
always lousy at math
don’t know when it’s time to walk away

Most of us were lost to the oblivion of reality
While the rest were forced to find their own

Left with nothing but the density of that memory
The nubby carpet on bare feet
That walked four blocks to school every day;
Knowing the two songs, one long and one short
to play in order to walk up right at their conclusion.

Hair up,
The way some of you will never feel the pull of the end of the day when you’re eleven
rolling down at the foot of the
bed making static with my tights as I waited for the shower
There were three
But we wanted to be so close
We wanted to know, even back then, that this wouldn’t change
everything.

But surprise would have been a look in the eye
An igniting
Though even the disciples had a foul look on their faces that very next day
And the next, and the next

It was cacophony
Not the chaos of victorious movement
but an overwhelming weight that slowed the speed of sound
To be honest I dont remember it well

I was always lousy at math
But I was too young to perceive its absence.
I floated by, escaping to that oblivion
thousands of miles between me and my home.

I counted the cracks that connected my math teacher’s eye’s
To the rest of her face,
On the sidewalk;
I had never seen humanity like that
realness, with no sense of humor
A piece of art you must let dry else you’d ruin it’s integrity

I know now why she was crying
We pitied her brittle strands and
shapeless way of presentation
A spectacle
I know now she was crying
In black shapesless clothes
She was staring back at us

My sister was born in the first week of November.
I was four and my whole body pulsed with sick
I wonder if she had known that a sickness festered in the earth beneath us
‘Infecting children as they walked to school
Rushing through the viens of teachers, preachers

I tried to shine my face in hers
To smother something into her baby brain
A rude awakening to the world
That things would change
I know now why she was crying