This LotN really isn't a link at all. Every once in a while, I like to post some poetry from some of my favorite writers — and this would be one of those times. This is due to me digging them up and/or watching them perform these certain pieces, and the fact that in my peruzing of the DA poetry tiers, THERE HAS BEEN NO GOOD POETRY, ARRRRRG.
Anywho.
Have fun, enjoy, see you later.
Convenience Stores
by
Buddy Wakefield
We both know the smell of a convenience store at 4 am like the backs of a lotta hands.
She sells me trucker crack (Mini-Thins[like Vivarin]). Doesn’t make me feel awkward about it.
She can tell it’s been a long drive, and it’s only gonna get longer.
Offers me a free cup of coffee, but I never touch the stuff.
Besides, I’m gonna need more speed than that.
We notice each other’s smiles immediately.
It’s our favorite thing for people to notice – our smiles.
It’s all either one of us has to offer.
You can see it in the way our cheeks stretch out like arms
wanting nothing more than to say “You, are welcome here.”
She -
shows brittle nicotine teeth with spaces between each one.
Her fingers are bony. No rings. And she’d love to get’er nails done someday.
One time she had'er hair fixed.
They took out the grease, made it real big on top, and feathered it.
She likes it like that.
She will never be fully informed on some things just like I will never understand who really buys
Moon Pies, or those rolling, wrinkled, dried-up sausages, but then again, she’s been here a lot
longer than me. She's seen everything from men who grow dread locks out of their top lips to
children who look like cigarettes.
I give’er my money. I wait for my change. But I feel like there’s something more happening here.
I feel -
like a warm mop bucket and dingy tiles that’ll never come clean.
I feel like these freezers cannot be re-stocked often enough.
I feel like trash cans of candy wrappers with soda pop dripping down the wrong side of the plastic.
I feel like everything just got computerized.
I feel like she was raised to say a LOT of stupid things about a color.
And I feel like if I were to identify myself as gay –
This conversation would STOP.
It’s what I do
I feel.
I get scared sometimes.
And I drive.
…But in 1 minute and 48 seconds I’m gonna walk outta here with a full tank of gas, a bottle of Mini-Thins, and a pint of milk while there’s a woman trapped behind a formican counter somewhere in North Dakota who wants nothing more than to hear my whole story. All 92,775 miles of it.
I can tell, though, she’s heard more opinions and trucker small talk than Santa Claus has made kids happy, so I only find the nerve to tell'er the good parts; that she’s the kindest thing to happen since Burlington, VT and I wanna leave it at that... ...Because men - who are not smart - have taken it farther; have cradled her up like a nutcracker and made’er feel as warm as a high school education on the dusty backroad, or a beer… in a coozy. I feel like she’s been waiting here a long time for the one who’ll come 2-steppin’ through that door on 18 wheels without makin’er feel like it’s her job to sweep up the nutshells alone when she’s done been cracked again. A man who won’t tempt her to suck the wedding ring off his dick, but will show her - simply - Love. She doesn’t need me or any other man, but she doesn’t know that either, and I’m just hopin’ like crazy she doesn’t think I’m the one because the only time I’ll ever see North Dakota again is in a Van Morrison song late (LATE) at night. I Promise.
Y’all, I feel like she’s 37 years old wearing 51 (badly), dying inside (like certain kinds of dances around fires) to speak through you, a forest, if you weren't so taken with sparks.
But she wasn't given those words. She has not been told that she can definitely change the world. She knows some folks do, but not in convenience stores and NOT with lottery tickets.
So I finally ask’er what I been feelin’ the entire time I’ve been standin’ there still getting’ scared like I do sometimes, really (REALLY) ready to drive, I ask…
“Is this it for you? Is this all you’ll ever do?”
Her smile
collapsed.
That tightly strapped-in pasty skin
went loose.
Her heart
fell crooked.
She said,
(not knowing my real name)
“I can tell, buddy, by the Mini Thins and the way ya drive,
That we’re both taken with novelty.
We’ve both believed in mean gods.
We both spend our money on things that break too easily like… people.
And I can tell that ya think you’ve had it rough,
So especially you should know:
It’s what I do -
I dream
I get high sometimes.
And I’m gonna roll outta here one day.
I just might not get to drive.
Love Like
by
Shihan
I want a love like me, thinking of you, thinking of me,
thinking of you type love
or, me telling my friends more than I've ever admitted to
myself about how I feel about you type love
or, hating how jealous you are, but loving how much you
want me all to your self type love,
or seeing how your first name just sounds so good next to my last name,
and shit, I wanted to see how far I could get without
calling you, and I barely made it out of my garage.
See, I want a love that makes me wait until she falls
asleep then wonder if she dreaming about us being in love
type love,
or who loves the other more,
or what she's doing at this exact moment,
or slow dancing in the middle of our apartment to the music of our hearts, closing my eyes and imagining how a love so good could just hurt so much when she's not there.
Shit, I love not knowing where this love is headed type love.
And check this, I want to place those little post-it notes
all around the house so she never forgets how much I love her type love then not have enough ink in my pen to write
all there is to love about her type love.
Hope that I make her feel as good as she makes me feel, like believing that her being in my life makes me a better person type love or I want her to distract me form whatever I'm doing type love
and I want to deal with my friends making fun of me the
way I made fun of them when they went through the same kind of love type love.
Only difference is this is one of those real love type loves.
and just like in high school, I want to spend hours on the phone with her not saying shit,
then fall asleep then wake up with HER right next to me,
and smell her all up in my covers type love
I want to try to counting the ways I love her, and then
lose count in the middle just so that I have to start all
over again type love
I want to celebrate one of those month anniversaries even
though they ain't really anniversaries, but doin' it just
cause it makes her happy type love.
And I want to break down the time we spend together into seconds just so it sounds like we spend more time together type love
And check this, I want fall in love with the melody the
phone plays when her number is dialed into it type loves
and then talk to her until I lose my breath, she leaves me breathless, but with the expanding of my lungs I inhale all of her back into me
I want a love that makes me need to change my cell phone calling plan to something that allows me to talk to her longer
because, in all honesty, I want to avoid one of them high cell phone bill type loves.
I want a love that makes me regret how small my hands are
I mean the lines on my palms don't give me enough time to love her as long as I'd like to type loves,
and I want a love that makes me st-st-st-st-stutter just thinking
about how strong this love is type love.
I want a love that makes me want to cut off all my hair
Well, maybe not all of the hair
maybe just cut the split ends and trim my mustache, but
it will still be a symbol of how strong my love is for her.
And check this, I kinda feel comfortable now, so I can tell y'all this I even be fantasizing about walking out on a green light just dying to get hit by a car just so I could lose my memory
get transported to some third world country just to get treated then somehow meet up again with you so that I could fall in love with you in a different language to see if it still feels the same
I want a love that's as unexplainable as she is, but I'm married, so she is going to be the one that I share this love with.