When you realize a pen can only touch so many pages
before it runs out, remember. I belong to you.
Just like it, I’ll touch and stay before I go
but I’ll touch longer. I’ll speak to you like my words are no language
without your ears. Like they belong to you, like I belong to them.
When your school bus driver complains to you
about always being on the road
but never toward the right destination,
tell him my love can relate to this
and then tell him that’s probably why
I belong to you
and him
and to the girl who laughs loud enough
just to hear herself laughing,
and to the grandmother
who always seems to prefer sobbing over tearing,
I always try to tell them,
I belong to them
like I belong to all the breaths
under the river
and to all the dead souls
trying to break free of their ghosts
just to touch us
and to all the dark alleys
trying to make the passers-by
belong to them, I belong
to them like I belong to you.
There’s a blind man who plays
his saxophone underground in London.
He only hears the touch of coins against his case
and the thousands of people hurrying to the tube
he can almost see them
more than they see him
as they give him their coins,
and there’s a guitar man in New York City
who stomps his feet as he strums,
we always smile as we leave him
by Penn station.
He belongs to the stomps and strums
so much he doesn’t even smile back.
So we smile more,
and can’t tell where we are
because it’s so familiar, like many other places
Warren Street Station
Mile End Road
Kingscross
Manhasset
so we start belonging to low rooftops,
scarred walls,
loud footsteps,
and wordless music stations,
to the feeling of seeing something for the first time
that you've already seen before
on an aging face,
in eyes covered by black sunglasses,
and dimples hidden by wrinkles
that you still can see because the grin
is just too wide.
So I start belonging
to you , to them, to myself
to this little girl Salma
who has too many big sisters
that are not her own,
including me.
She tells me what her father did
as he left her,
what her brother did
as he left her,
and when I ask her about her favorite people in the world
she asks, can my father and brother both be #1 ?
so I belong to her more.
I teach her to learn from the sun,
how it exhales loudest
before it sets to sleep
and I teach her to learn from the last page
that absorbs all it can from the pen
that’s going to run out on any next word
and I show her what guitars and problems
have in common,
how you can’t make music out of either one
until your fingertips are callous enough
and she teaches me how to belong,
she teaches me
how to belong
same way I’m trying to teach you,
so belong to me,
to all the rooftop drinkers,
tree top climbers,
basement poets,
and to everything they belong to.
So when you’re walking through a dark alley tonight
don’t reach the end of it,
and when your love is everywhere,
when it’s always on the road
but never in the right direction,
don’t tell it to find home,
and when you visit your grandmother tomorrow
do not ask her to stop sobbing,
and when you think of ghosts
think of the souls waiting to break free of them
just to touch you
again. And as you meet your next stranger,
think of me - how you don’t know me
but will hold my hand,
look straight into my eyes
and belong to me.
gummygunk
izzy806
dededos
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
snowghoul
