Back Alley Promise
It’s a back alley promise,
but then aren’t they all?
She stumbles the littered street,
everything discarded,
least of which is this life,
these chances that didn’t
seem like chances
until it was all over.
She thinks these things,
cigarette little more than a stub
threatening to char her lips,
and she wonders what it would take,
what would happen if she were to
take off a shoe,
chuck it at the nearest window,
and listen to the glass rain down,
thousands of deadly shards of rainbows.
She’d like that,
it feels like something.
But she doesn’t.
She keeps walking down that alley,
and never turns back.
Entrance
She sees a shadow of something
she almost remembers;
a blinking flash of recognition,
and she wants to go in,
just grab the handle,
swing, all her muscles tensed in action,
and enter, everything giving way
to her.
When she sees the spiderwebbed glass
she wants that control more than anything.
But the cars pass down the
mostly forgotten road,
street peppered with sparse houses,
and she feels the eyes of the world
anticipating her next movement,
and that’s far too much pressure
for the little she has left within.
The sun tells her lies,
the clouds offer only cloying comfort,
and no possible action makes sense.
So she balls herself up into herself,
a flexing, tense amalgamation
of all that she has accumulated,
and she puts a boot through the glass,
unconsciously screaming all the while.
The shattering sings along with her,
an ode to reclamation.
She opens the door.
Hooks
She hangs herself from
the inside of everywhere,
constant repetition of things
she’s always known,
but never wanted in her head.
And these moments,
imagined and real,
they permeate everything,
leaving her so full of holes,
such a leaky vessel,
it’s no wonder she’s light enough
to float to the ceiling of her mind
and pin herself upon
anything more substantial
than the nothings
she carries in her threadbare pocket.
Sometimes outside of herself
she can hear a bird call
or even a child laugh,
and that almost feels like a sign
that things could keep rolling
long enough uphill
to reach the crest,
and there she’ll finder herself,
the easy slide
into comfort.
But those things never happen,
not for her.
So she hangs herself from
the inside of everywhere,
gently, loosely swaying in
someone else’s breeze.
Abandon
When there’s nothing left
but to turn up a go,
that’s what is done.
No need for bags or wishes,
only what can fit into a pocket,
only the baggage that
doesn’t physically weigh.
Nothing is finished,
everything is left to chance,
and all the things undone
are to forever remain that way.
Seeing the world through
a peephole of determination,
a tunnel vision of depressing hope,
the ether cries its demands,
and the walker determines
what is to be left unanswered.
Maybe the roof wouldn’t cave,
but then maybe it would,
either way, no one will be there
to witness the outcome.
magic
she forcibly sees things in clouds
any number of wonders
deities
aliens
illustrations of the kama sutra
her great aunt
nothing is off limits
when imagination
and more importantly
hope
are the only weapons
she forcibly sees things in clouds
she has to
because there’s no magic to be found
James Benger is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He is on the Board of Directors of The Writers Place and the Riverfront Readings Committee and is the founder of the 365 Poems In 365 Days online workshop, and is Editor in Chief of the anthology series. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.
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