Charlie Dillon
2019 - poetry
the city speaks to me, candy sweet,
through her white picket fence teeth,
her rotting wooden tongue telling me
stories of my own youth
like i am myself, but a child again,
all big bright eyes
and she is my mother, spinning silvery fables.
the city speaks to me, in echoes,
in hallways of classrooms morphed by memory,
in metallic laughters of a thousand friends
not mine to have. and she speaks like a snake,
wants to swallow me into suburbia with her,
and i know i have to run, before
the new schoolyard paves me into the asphalt
or the track stars bury me into the gravel,
a sacrifice to the parent teacher organization.
the city speaks to me, in the voice of crackling fires,
in the voice of a bittersweet, half-forgotten first kiss,
in the voice of a thousand songs from a broken red iPod,
in the voice of a close friend who’s last name i’ve lost,
as i turn away from her.
the city speaks to me, but i not to her,
the city calls me home, and, yes, i call her home,
but cannot look her in the eyes.