Junk in Your Trunk

 

I lost my heart today as I woke up and realized you weren’t here.

Realized you would never be here.

Sang to myself as I drove down the street,

the worn motorcycle helmet rolling and thumping around in my trunk,

like a dismembered head.

It thumps and my passengers wonder

What is that rolling around back there?

Oh, I say, just a couple of things I’ve left in my trunk.

I haven’t quite finished unpacking. An uneasy laugh.

 

And with every clunk I’m reminded:

The sun was shining, it was May.

Clunk.

You had so much hope.

Clunk Clunk.

Look at you now, chain-smoking cigarettes, staring out the windshield and coming home alone every night.

 

You avoid contact with those people.

The ones that remind you of a more lush time.

A time when you planted seeds for your future and expected nothing short of a rainforest teeming with fertile soil, wild fruit, and thick canopies.

You came back after planting those seeds and walked into a desert.

And now you drive around this desert,

eyes peeled and tired from looking at the brittle landscape.

Its face washed and swept clean of any emotion, except that of nostalgia.

 

The desert wears the face of an old woman who has buried her sons and husband.

Good, strong men.

The Vietnam War.

A heart attack.

She sits on her front porch and rocks in her chair, smoking her cigarette, her eyes smiling at the distant hills.

You pad through the kitchen,

soft feet on the hard tile floor.

You flip on some music to fill the silence and

slide a cast-iron skillet on the stove-top.

You push the eggs around until

They clump, forming small groups of their own.

You sit at the kitchen table and eat.

 

You remember your Developmental Psychology teacher, the one whose parents wanted her to be a lawyer instead of a psychologist.

            I said I don’t want to be a lawyer, I want to be a psychologist. I studied hard, graduated and look at me now! I’m successful and happy.

I tilted the corners of my mouth, looked out the window and murmured look at me now.

 

Look at me now. 

Author's Note

I wrote this poem a while back...very unedited

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I like the poem a lot. We can learn from our world around us. All of us carry excess baggage we cannot lose. I like the places and people in the poem. Thank you for sharing the outstanding poetry. Poetry support to tell stories and hold the reader. Your poem did.
Coyote

[SoledadSamuels]

Thank you!

[Demii]

This is really good, a really passionate, its very detailed and I could literally image everything that as happening and the feelings that were presented. I really did like it, good job!

[SoledadSamuels]

Thank you =)

[00000000000000000000000..]

It was awesome you pack a visual experience with the poem I love that, A story poem:) you should turn your rating on I saw a 100 in both writes:)

[SoledadSamuels]

Wow thanks =)

[0000000000000000000000000000]

Your very welcome:))))))))))))))))