Forgettable

 

If you just had confidence you’d be… he uses his hands to illustrate a bomb exploding,

Hiroshima between palms. I feel, eyes full of smoke, just another particle of self, eroding,

giving additional ammo to my internal voice. It’s the word just that loiters, downloading

every memory we have on file of when, if I’d just had confidence…

 

Do you ever wonder what you’re up to in one of the other timelines? I do.

Especially the one where every decision and action built me up to

be the most unshakable version of me in all existence. Jealous boy two

verses Othello. Self-assured brick by solid rock, I am in this scene. I AM.

 

You want to see her right up inside the crowd, where words are lost in the air,

Chatting like a Radio DJ, a God, she can’t hear what you are saying so there

you are safe. But later, in the smoking area, she calls you out of nowhere

and your interior chatter drowns out the voice that attempts to respond.

 

This silence is defining you.

This silence is defining you.

This silence defines you.

 

Smoking gives you something to put in your mouth, except weed does not help at any stage,

it wakes up the razor-winged butterflies that were momentarily sleeping in your rib cage.

Half a minute later and you think of a thousand words to say, page after page,

an entire novel. It’s alright, you weren’t really here. A shadow on the backdrop.