Turning the Page

(Word count - 934)

I hear your music. You think I don’t. It is screaming in your ears so loudly that you lose track of all other senses. You don’t see feel taste smell that I am staring at you. But I am. Staring at you. Not through, at. I hear your music. You listen to music that I would hear in a chapel. Organs. Choirs. Babies crying in the back and mothers softly shushing.

Correspondence. Organ music during correspondence. Not my choice. I hear your music. Your choice. Why choose organ music. Organs. An integral part of being. The music of our organs. Percussion of the heart. Writing a love letter. Correspondence of organ music.

Hungerful grumbling stomach. That is music, sure. And now, now it is poetic.

Choose a word, any word. Put it on repeat and record results.

Hypothesis: Continually repetition of a single commonplace word or utterance will deconstruct the commonplace meaning of said word or utterance and creativity shall flourish to the point of enstrangement.

Word: Fork. Strange word to begin with. Let’s give it a whirl.

Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.
Fork.

The harshness of k. I’d never noticed the harshness of k. Do all letters have these personalities? Probably. The f, sassy. The o, inflexible. The r, gentle and scared, next to that k. This represents fork. The k most noticeable, with its four harsh tongs ready to pounce, to prey, to puncture. The others fit, too. You try.

The sound of a grape.

Scending an infinitive ladder, never to fall.

Jumping jacks for jumping jills.

Only huMan.

Don’t search for the meaning.

Spruce things mean.
Cart primps ton.
Hell sun don.

Still scending the ladder.

Cough drops sell books milk notebook.

A coffee table book about coffee tables.

The meta.

These thoughts aren’t connecting. Need for rum in my diet. Connect the thoughts. Connect yourself.

I’m writing. She’s writing. He’s talking. Language is confining us. His, not English. Hers, not spoken. Language the same. She writes, erases, rewrites. A mistake? There are no mistakes in language! Yak bullet. Not a mistake. It’s who decides that makes the mistake.

I rewind. I remember, again. Five years old. Pencil in head. Some poetry written. Not mine. Already everyone’s. I remember.

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.
So please excuse the handwriting
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion's cage
I'm afraid I got too near.
And I'm writing these lines
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.

Shel Silverstein, girl’s favorite poet. Poetry at five, a mystery. The attraction, the rhymes, the lions, the humor. Girl laughs.

Shel Silverstein, woman’s favorite poet. Poetry at twenty-one, a mystery. The attraction, the deeper meaning, the symbolism, the tropes. Woman laughs, metaphorically.

I skip class to write poetry. Never would have crossed my mind before. Just skip class and write. Okay, write what? Poetry. Why, she asks. Why not?

String theory. Perhaps in another universe I am in EAF228. In this one, I am not. I am writing poetry. Poetry about how I am not in a class that I should be in. If I am thinking about it, writing about it, technically I feel like I am there. Let me email George and tell him to erase my absence from his attendance sheet.

Correspondence. Let’s not forget the organ music. Now faded. Still playing somewhere, but I cannot hear it. I cannot hear any music. Or can I? I hear sounds, scratches, slams. Music? If everything is poetry, is everything music? Is poetry music and music poetry? Lyrical.

I skip class. Think denotatively, creatively. Seemingly opposites but descend. Skip class. That sounds enjoyable even literally. Skip class. Like gym class in kindergarten. Holding hands, sashaying carelessly around an enormous echoing space. That was the girl.

Skip class now, woman. Enjoyable, still. Yet anxiety-filled. Never relaxation in skipping class. I think I’ll nap. No nap to be had. Let’s call up some friends. No friends with spare time, they’ve all not skipped. Let’s go somewhere great. Somewhere great? This is Bloomington. I head to Milner to write poetry.

It’s often strange to me this place a library. How is it that in my apartment, my quiet distant lonesome apartment, I find so many ways to distract my mind. Yet, in this noisy typing busy bustling place, I find peace of mind. I concentrate I connect. It’s conducive.

So many people, such a small space, not a word exchanged. She sneezes. Everyone too scared to speak bless you, although we all say it silently to ourselves. And yet no distraction.

It’s the space. The knowing of the shared insight into what this space provides. Think of a different space. The quad. Eye contact and smiles welcome. The PubII, many words, glances, laughs. But not Milner. It’s almost eerie from an outside perspective. Don’t make eye contact, that’s staring! No talking, that’s rude. Stare straight ahead. Mind your own business. Look busy, at least. Punch those keys, sound busy. Wrinkle your brow. Scratch your head. Rest your chin on your fist, Thinker. Turn the pages, erase a word, backspace backspace forward again. Check Facebook, the only connection.

Maybe everything is. Just need a new perspective. A new terminological screen. A new network of interpretation. Here I go again, with that rhetoric bullshit. The study that reshaped my lexicon, not my thought. Not my perspective. Still, I am biased.
This space. Biased, too.

LAURA BLASKEY