Spring Cleaning - Witness

Spring Cleaning

there’s a method to the madness of this attic i’m accustomed to

but every spring i try to visit with a brush and broom

dust consumes this collection of souvenirs

and tonight i’d like to erase any proof that you were here

let’s begin with a look inside of a shoe box

here’s my youthful aspiration to be 2pac

a book on darwin with photos of the galapagos

here’s a picture of the father that i never got to know

a shot my mother bathing her babies in a sink

a mediocre poem that i wrote in golden ink

and over here is a crate of academic records

i traded in for vinyl when i learned i could apply em better

it’s apparent that i haven’t cleaned in ages when i’m finding

social studies books with porn between the pages

born in fetal stages and cluttered ever since

this attic needs the vacancy to make some room to think

but in the corner there’s a chest that’s under lock and key

and possibly the target of the cleansing

and as it opens there’s a part of me that’s over it and part of me

that wants to keep remembering

dear john,

i’m ecstatic that we met and i

haven’t been upset from the night we spoke on the beach

it feels like there’s a part of me that’s hollow

and i’ll follow you because i think you’ve got the missing piece

dear john,

can’t believe it’s been a year, wish that you were here with me in this

unfamiliar city

i know you’re insecurities are eating you alive, but i’m thinking of your eyes

every time we…

dear john,

i’m the victim of a city serpent’s venom and i’m being sent away

in search of purpose

it hurts that anniversaries are only words to me and lately i’ve been wondering

why you thought i was worth it

she ran shoe less through shards of my heart of glass toward a garden of golden

roses with invisible thorns

and her presence in my attic is an umbilical cord that pulls my physical form

towards her miserable storm

i stripped the picture frames of their faces

and liberated shackled chain letters from my ankles and wrists

and kept my fingers from the edges of the envelopes and anything

that might have had a dance with her lips