This is my dog. There are many like her, but this one is mine. by: Jennifer Roberts, Archival Inkjet Print, 2019
Hollow
Dead was written all over his face and hands,
as if there was nothing left to be said except
all the little lies that make life hollow:
I’m fine and
Work was good and
It doesn’t bother me much anymore.
Alone in his apartment with brittle-bone walls
he spat poetry like noxious fire,
melted plastic, burning skin;
sure that his neighbors both heard
and heard nothing,
the smoke erupting from his throat
so raw and thick it could be seen as
a signal of defeat for miles around.
Sometimes, he would listen to NPR
on the way home from work
and hear the story of another
fucking rapist and scream.
White knuckles clenching the steering wheel,
gas pedal crushed like some bastard’s skull,
flying down the highway until he was somewhere else,
entirely.
He tucked his words out of reach,
the whispers of what was
echoing in no man’s land, a dead language.
He put his typewriter away,
locked it in boxes like caskets
thrown overboard during a violent storm
so that a leak wouldn’t sink the whole ship.
They’re already dead anyway, right?
Except he wasn’t sure if the words were dead,
or himself, or just the ears
of people who listened.
So he trapped the images
the way one traps a bear:
One foot broken, secured, but still with rage
only slightly confined.
Well, maybe if you leave it long enough,
he’ll die on his own…
…silence is the solution:—solution to what?
And what silence can he keep
when every blink and tremor is filled
with chaotic rhythms and
feelings, repulsive feelings, so loud
sometimes he would just scream.