The Longer You Stay

Nostalgia is a room just before you enter it
And it is dark outside and somehow you have already
Turned on the lights that are low and leave shadows in the corners
There is a song playing loudly around your arms and in
The veins in your arms which sounds like another time
Though you never knew it

Maybe earlier that day if that day were years ago
Mother would only let you swim after the sunset
And there would be something majestic about hearing nothing
Underwater, seeing the green pool light and thinking about a girl
With chlorine making your eyes red
The one night when dessert came first
And the boats were shifting in the ocean which was darker
Than all the melted chocolate and night mixed on the table

I’m in the nostalgic room right now with my eyes closed
And I am dictating this poem to the shadows that surround me
From time to time the pen stops and I ask what is the matter
Nothing says the darkness
The darkness says nothing and starts writing again

I can remember the desert of the southwest in this moment
I can remember how upset I’ve always been
Like when I read the wall in a the bathroom which said
“Blowjobs here Tuesday and Thursday at eight AM”
And just below those words in another color ink
“Thoughtful political conversation here Wednesday at five thirty PM”

The music that I bought at the small record stores in the southwest was angry
Like the dust of all the Indian ancestors stuck between the spaces of my sock
And the inside of my shoe or when the only word you could think of was “gun”
But that’s because you have tourettes and watched John Wayne movies after
You got your wisdom teeth pulled and couldn’t even call your girlfriend
From the gauze and spit and silly little thoughts

I’m dictating all of this in that room and the other part of me hesitates for a moment
Commenting upon the obvious writers block like communism but without the cay
Which has gone on long enough
Longer than a book but shorter than three abbreviated dusty epics in dead languages
And without colored pictures
Dizzy from the songs in my arms so I past out and went in


“God love him he tried his best” suggests the empty room around me
But I don’t listen because I pray everyday that walls don’t talk
Because then I would have five things more than none to worry about

If I had put a TV in that room
And I had turned it on, I can only be sure of one thing
It would be at that part just before something happens
When people are glancing at each other as the camera cuts here and there
And there are no audible words but just quick movements
Guns held at ready, shirts unbuttoned, slow motion choir hymns
And your heart is beating just as fast as those on screen
And you are scared
You are so scared
And you’re fumbling with the remote trying to change the channel
And just then you think you hear footsteps outside the door
Or maybe the handle turns
Or the sound is coming from just behind you
And there are suddenly a thousand warnings you realize you’ve ignored
And you are scared
You are so scared
You’re afraid that when this music finally reaches its climax
That nostalgia is just the strange misfiring of a dead brain stem
That reminiscing is just an unending sadness
Empty like why oh you
A darkness full with more monsters than the most pleasant memory can sustain