Submissions by edtheroach

There was a man here once
She sighs fingering his cuffs and collars
Letting her tips bump along the curves and edges of his tools.
She looks at her sons,
Hoping this one will be just like his father
(the one using his chin to close his cell phone who from my angle looks as though to shoot himself).
Wishing the other will remember him.
(the boy I think is playing a harmonica, but is only lighting a cigarette)
She looks at her daughter,
Praying she’ll tell her husband she loves him every day
Even when they get in fights
Even when they’re apart –...

I.

It’s alien, it’s not mine anymore
I lost possession years before
I felt anything.
Doppelganger take it all away – take
Every inch of this body – leave
Nothing for me to claim
Without excuses, without a childhood to blame.

II.

I saw a shooting star
A firecracker or a piece of plane
It tells me where you are
A funny little game.
Here, parked beneath my sin
Sighing with a person underserved
Take me here, take me now –
Violently without reserve.

III.

I can’t take myself, can’t hurt the shell...

I am a maelstrom
of mist
Yet I remain,
the same substance
Which constantly
changes.

Piano hands
Rendered me unattuned
to sweeter notes;
Faithful to their minors.

Poison travels down the tips
Staining like ink to bury keys,
Melodies they would not care to hear
Are stifled and subdued.

Prodding, weathered fingers – manipulate the tune,
Carefully, rhythmically – building up each time
Pound the strings, forcefully, mercilessly
And leave me fragile, used,

Looking for piano hands to tune me right –
Searching for a worthy song to sing.