he would say
be still.
be still my boy.
never son.
because i wasnt.
just some boy from a different dad.
seems like the only thing we had in common was our need for therapy, but
we never went.
we just spent quiet time together.
as if silence was expensive, but we were both fithy rich
a question like "do you love me?"
was an itch our doctors told us never to scratch.
so we just prayed someone would catch it while rubbing us down after walking around with the weight of each others world on our shoulders
we had hearts like boulders
we played sysophis trying to push the others uphill
but we told our hearts
"be still."
let no one move you.
let no one lift you.
let no one get through that stone wall you call skin
let no one in
because people are clumsy and they'll break you
take you apart and study you
tell the world they knew you
as if knowing you was enough to make them the worlds most formost expert on you
they'll claim that everything you did or didnt do was just another complexity solved as simply as a grade two problem
as if by age seven my only problem was math.
as if i was never seven and more dedicated to figuring out which path was quickest to the bathroom
so the bullies wouldnt have the satisfaction of seeing me bleed on my clothes
and god know's you'd be there.
inside everywhere like a nightmare i couldnt stop having.
i'd wake up shaking with you there making it worse,
saying "be still."
"be still my boy."
never son.
just someone who it seems you like.
just someone who it seems you never tried to know.
so somehow without moving, we'd go through the motions.
two desserts daydreaming about a time when we were oceans.
we were still trying to make our tides come in
as if we'd been throwing messages in bottles into each other
and our refusal to actually write those messages
was just another way to say
nothing
we'd bring stillness home like a stray dog
and teach it to play dead
tongues like leeches, we bled our voices dry
while a plain dead dog would try to teach us tricks, like
speak.
but we sat silent.
like two blind students trying to sneak a peak at their grade six teacher getting dressed
but we never knew what direction to look
so the kids next to us always whispered
"eyes on your own test"
and i hated you.
all the way up until the day you finally spoke.
you said
"there will come a time...
when the world will look at you without concern because you have always been still.
they will look past you, you will be as unregarded as the scenery that people take for granted.
you will be rooted in the perception of you that they have planted in their minds...
but all the while you will grow."
"and after all the years you spent trying to know stillness, the whole world will turn their heads,
unable miss the moment you decide to move.
and there will come a time when you must move
move with the full force you would find behind the eyes of someone who could have spent their life satisfying a million desires
but instead decided to conquer just one"
move like a legion of natural disasters towards the monuments they have built in an attempt to declare greatness they have never earned move as swiftly as the knowledge learned by the students of practice.
move so they cannot dismiss you.
like sunlight through stained glass
not around but through each mass they would raise against you.
move because being still is something they can never make you do.
move, my boy,
because i love you."
and i thought
awesome,
you totally taught me how to be stubborn,
thats great.
but now that youre gone,
now that quality has turned trait
i find myself caught up in an endless debate of
where vs. when
as if i'm waiting for then to become now
so that the answers to why i resemble reasons like somehows as if somehow is enougn to encompass the rough estimates i make when i decide what direction to take for the moment i break stillness
this heart is a juggernaught
one that you took the time to shape against all those who would hold up red tape in the path of life i choose to live thorough.
this is much more than my meager declaration of love.
this is my thank you.
this is for a man who knew me well enough to know that should i ever choose to go full throttle i can set my sails like a ship breaking through the neck of a whiskety bottle.
school was a boxing ring,
and the man in my corner made sure not to bring a towel to throw in.
ive been studying stillness
watched my mother fight and lose to an illness that forced itself upon her as if it were the man she met after my father
the same man who couldnt bother to stick around after the diagnosis.
i have known stillness.
this is for my grand dad.
who had the good sense to take me to that man's house so i could ask him why he did he what he did...
why?
i will accept your apology,
but you better make me believe that youre sorry.
so go ahead.
move me.
end
