Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Seperations Pt. II

I believe that we all need each other. Not because without our friends we'd grow bored or because we'd miss our family members if they went on a long trip, but because each of us plays a role in creating all the others. I think in the end if I look carefully, I'll be able to see how each person crafted me, imbued me with the characteristics I thought uniquely mine. I think I need my friends and family, even my rivals, like I need my kidneys. Sure, they're pleasant, but they're also what allow me to function as a person. Without them I couldn't grow or develop, test myself or even learn who I really am.

Maybe that's part of why it's so hard to lose someone you need. Especially if you lost them through a fault of your own, like taking out your own kidneys.

2

We sit in a parked car on an empty street
and I keep trying to talk but everything
in the car is shouting: the steering wheel
and dashboard, the pedals and black vinyl seats -
all keep shouting. Now your hands are pressed
against your ears and I keep raising my voice.
Cold night, cold street, rows of dark apartments -
then I see a gray dog run into an alley
carrying some creature in its mouth, something
that twists and raises its arms. And raising
my arms I turn toward you and abruptly
the shouting stops and the place where you were
sitting fills with silence. Before I can speak,
soften my words, you jump from the car.
Once, when you were away for a week, I wrote
your name on a banner to welcome you home.
Now the wind blows pieces of paper against
the car windows, and on each I see a letter
of your name, as if my voice were a pair of hands
good for nothing but tearing and breaking. How
did we become so foreign? I tell myself, I could
collect these fragments, patch them together.
I sit without moving as the wind rocks my car,
whips scraps of white paper through the street.

-Stephen Dobyns

4 comments:

Anthony said...

I'm not sure I agree. And that's all I have to say about that.

Jocelyn said...

I completely agree Kevin! I like the kidney simile.

Anthony said...

I need more Kevin entries! They're mind blowingly cool and this one is getting as old as the dinosaurs. Cough up something fresh.

Miss Stack said...

This reminds me of D&C section 46. God gave everyone different talents so we have to work together to get the whole effect.