The Listening

This poem is about listening, Humans muffle out white noise, with fireblankets cotton swabbing our ears, but the earphones of "right now" are plugged in But then you can't hear the caress of each hair in the lion's mane moan "more toothy smiles" to cascade onto the creaseless face of a child starving, bellies growl, coyotes howl louder than the prostitutes waking up the neighbors But hey, we're all neighbors We're all right next to each other transitively speaking Can You Hear Me? I want the sky to burn hellfire tonight I want the sparks to singe your steampunk cheekbones and brand your identity behind your eyelids See through your own vista Let firecrackers bark off my teeth and taste tangibly thick smoke in your ears tonight I wanted God to walk me down the aisle, Have Buddha marry me to life but I'm scared of commitment But tonight I want each of you to pull my hair and claw out my eyes So I can stop being human with my iris and start being loving with my eardrums beating louder than the cries of a baby with a virus Tossing sounds out the voice box we're blessed with seems like a switch, Now you can talk, now you can't, now you can, now you can't Can't explain why purple has no rhyming lovers, and why x, y, and z are like triplet-born brothers And why so many poems are about love and hate, her and him, sex and death, or just being human But tonight my heart is listening but it's gonna beat louder than bombs, erupting within every center of gravity, weaken everyone's lung cavities, repair missing parts off of amputees, So when we start a revolution so radically We can shut up for once and listen to each other cry out, all at the same time Staple my earlobe with truth so cold I am disturbed and feel addiction wring around my neck An addiction to the words of the quiet kids at school Listen to her glassy glaze over her crystal fields of green grasses Stained with beer and scarred with needles With insides saying "I want out of here" Hear out his depression tattoo his fingernails that never grow out, No many how many times he clips them too short Allow the embry to whisper Scripture Before the ropes of a father's one-drink-too-many tighten around a voice box of a child who could perform poetry like a ballerina's heart before the curtain ascends Listen to them No matter how uncomfortable it makes you Blindfold your windows and feel your throat go mute so you can Listen to them Stop looking at that hair out of place and look at the veterans without a face Listen to them The omitted heartbeat of the boy who loves boys Never knowing if the pump thereafter is stolen with revolvers Listen to them And then sit down for the wallflower's stories The fisherman's catch of the day The 'sold out sign' for an architect who picked up guitar at age nine Listen to them The folding crease of a bendy straw The hiss of a soda can on a hot summer day Infectious laughter, symphonies of rain going pitter-patter The little voice in your head that says "Your socks are mismatched today" Just sit down in rocking chair highways and listen to the oral tradition of the wind plucking your heartstrings like violins Hear the clouds share the sky blue Stop and smell the dandelions, because they have stories too