A night like any other
Crisp autumn nights make me feel
alive. While I sit on a stairway
in Long Beach, the cold ocean mist
slowly pours through 14th street
and begins to flow from my legs,
enwrapping at my waist, and settles
finally into my chest. I chase it down
with a drag from my cigarette, and the
two mix throughout my body. It is
as if I were immersed in a warm bath.
You know this feeling, this serenity
that only comes when you are fully
submerged underwater, and looking
up towards the sky. That perfect moment
of separation from all that you have ever known,
and the hauntingly recalled memories of all
that you were too young to remember
condenses into a stone in the deepest
part’s of your stomach.
It is here that the only sound you hear
is the deafening exhale from your nose
as the air bubbles scream and race towards
the water’s surface telling you that you are
alive. And in this moment one can appreciate
the tranquility, and beauty of a shattered world.
Sitting at this stairway through the soft exhales of my breath,
your muffled voice rings from the next room, and forces
my mind, which is gasping for air, back
towards the surface of this night.
Silently your shadow precedes your exit
from the door, and beckons me
like a siren. A slow sweet song emanates
from your soul. And if I were but to hazard
the journey up the two or three stairs
could we, just this once, slow dance
under the orange streams of a lamp shade?
We could, watch it shatter through the mist
like remnants of a mosaic never to be placed in time.
We, exist like the threads of a tapestry that recounts
a story of two intertwining
beings of light waltzing in time
to the orchestrations of the night, floating
atop the flowing pavement as it
slowly pours out towards a future
not yet known. And you, and I, could make
the future whatever we want it to be. So we can
slow dance a waltz atop a river of asphalt.
The deliberate movements of our bodies
in perfect harmony scarcely touches the pavement
like a feather floats serenely down a river. As
the sullen moon looks down upon us
reeling in unison among a world that is
so dark, and cold that sometimes, her light
fails, even to reach me, a smile will spread
across her fractured, deep rutted face
and she shall rest easier knowing that beauty
can exist in this world. It will be then
that I shall realize that seeing you on a crisp
autumn night makes me feel alive. But then, you were never there were you?
brennen Estrada 11/30/08
Via, revolvigmindpoetry
