Alphabet City

I relax my boundaries,
merge, seep outside the lines
to where I end, and the rest starts.

No such thing as this and the other,
just the all, what I am
is not as unique as I think;
sentience is.

Simply to meander as awareness
misting low over vernal pools,
is quite enough to keep me
live, a hot wire.

My mind, thoughts, and words,
all get in the way.

I’d otherwise just ride atop the hum,
the throb – am I the only one feeling that?

In my first month,
I knew my mother by her ear,
the cells of her hand,
as well as her eyes.

I was a puppy punching at my pop.

I once hit a pink ball so hard in the living room,
before I was ten, for sure,
it caught six walls, rebounding around the apartment,
before it lost steam, and caught the soft roll of linoleum.

I’d gaze out the curtains,
through the screens,
to watch you leave
early in the morning,
you off to work,
me a sixth grade insomniac.

I’d hear the bus air-brake on the avenue,
picking you up, taking you to the el,
as I’d drift back to sleep,
soothed by the tocking of your Baby Ben.

I think that time was intended
to culminate now –
always was.

I travel freely in nexus,
causal and otherwise, nasally,
nay synaptically – and syntactically –
congested.

My mind, thoughts, and words,
all get in the way,
I’d otherwise just ride atop the hum.

(That throb – seriously, am I the only one feeling that?)

© Carlos Chagall, 2013