Coffe House Piece

For a long time I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and recognize the pain in me

 It was just a short while ago I realized no one coming

A friend of mine once said something like, Adesola being friends with you is like staring into the sun, everyone needs sunlight but it is much too overwhelming for people to stick around long

Yikes, this statement is one that is infinitely curdling in the back of my brain

And it is ironic because ever since our Independence Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about the universe

And about how I wanted to write a poem that made people hear sirens but heart wrenching, explosive, clever quips, and abbreviated aggression, isn’t what makes writing good, honesty does

So honestly-simple

 I think it is amazing that we are all here today, regardless of how you think it came to occur

God or destiny or randomness, we are here

And honestly I think it is a shame how punctuated and complacent people allow themselves to be

We smile and wave and chortle and blink and inhale and convince ourselves we are alive this way

But blood circulation and breathing quantify existence not life and it’s taken me so long to recognize the difference

I met someone the other day and after meeting him I just though well there you go I don’t need to meet anyone else

Because he made me think about how quite it must be up on the moon

And how there didn’t have to be a falseness, always

It was so refreshing because it was immediately easy; often people call me cute and adorable and give me a team jersey just in time to make me the mascot

And that has gotten really tired

I’ve exhausted all of my anecdotes and my ability to differentiate my kindness from carelessness

Convincing yourself that things will work out somehow, when there’s no indicator of such is like trying to take your socks off before taking off your shoes, senseless

And I know some of you will hear this or read this and be confused

But it’s like when someone repeats a statement over and over again-it starts to lose its meaning and creates the most deafening kind of silence

Bless your heart- bless your heart- bless your heart

That’s adorable- that’s adorable- that’s adorable

You’re so weird- you’re so weird- you’re so weird

After hearing the same phrases over and over and being denied the feeling that you are more than a garnish more than a  hiccup

You hear an I love you

And the universe expands

I love you

And the universe wrinkles

I see you

I understand you

And I was pushed into a pool of I love yous but the most beautiful part is that they all sounded different

With different cadencies and movements like orbiting planets

And honestly it makes me think of honey in the sky sunsets

And midlife crisis’ and how to avoid them

And how if our lives were to be compared to a pilgrimage or a road trip how much of it would I spend in the passenger seat

And about how I want to believe people more when they say they care about me

And how when I’m sitting underneath tree branches with these kin of mine I never have more courage to stare into the sun