Recluse.

Stream-of-consciousness. Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you.

  Poetry is but a pair of buildings that I’ve come to use for bookends to my story. A peek, if you will, into a withering ocean drying up from underneath. The waters are transparent to visitors once a week before they turn muddied in seaweed and unravel in the jaws of sharks. A few good friends, a few good friends, then I’m back behind the comfort of my walls. I lay in-between island and land -- twin aisles who seem to rip me at the seams. Plot me the distance between eyeball and another planet, I’ll tell you I feel about as disconnected some days. The tandem of pillow n’ blanket sear into my skin, so I can’t undress the blinders on my window to the sun -- I can’t intake the shine; I can’t inhale the love.

 

   The click of a computer key doesn’t feed me the feeling of warmth that I receive from held hands, and laughter, and song, and art, and breathing, and living connection. Often, staring into my phone, I forget to breathe. Often, I raise my head not knowing where the last hundred seconds of existence went. Such a gulf in knowledge is scary -- is humanity so slippery a substance that it comes as the easiest thing to lose a handle of, to concuss to?

 

    My favorite record is John Frusciante’s Curtains. Should I die young, should I die a fine wine with age, cremate me with a copy of this record for a soundtrack. This is my meditation music; this is my shower speaker’s go-to audiobook -- I’ve done both at once: meditated in the dark, under running water to Curtains. This is a work of art entangled in the bullet wounds of my spirit where his lyrics, his harmonies and melodies all serve different wings of my 6-foot tall funeral parlor. I put this record on and awaken in an amazon. I listen to this and revive in Cape Town, then New Delhi, then somewhere in Germany, then in the heart of a rainy night on the countryside of England -- everywhere, yet right here, at once. Omnipresent. If music and water outrun everything on earth, this record is the two set to mutual frequencies. Curtains relieves me of my own curtains.

 

     Music, and books, and film, and nature outdoors, and nature within, and rainy days, and smart conversation, and laughter, and hugs, and early (and late) walks, and parks, and beaches: these are the faces of ways in which I connect. I work best as a lead director, in contrast to a lead actor. I center the spotlight, I pen the lines with enough room for others to flourish, I help set the film score, and I live free of care for how much time I put in so long as something beautiful grows from the dirtied seeds to fill the most malnourished of hungers within us.

 

                   I’m a team player, (and when I’m not) I’m a recluse.

Reviews

[Fairy Khan]

The ending statement finishes this prose poem well. Nicely written.

[V]

Very well (said) expressed & agreed.

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed your words and thoughts shared. I love books too. Easy to become a recluse when you write. need quiet time to create. Always a pleasure to read your amazing words and thoughts.
Coyote

[Belle]

A really good read for me, for a come back. Thank for sharing.

[Ted Kniffen]

Nice to see you back, Asante. When I was young I spent a great deal of time alone. I actually preferred it. There is a vast difference between alone and lonely. I read a lot, wrote a lot, but kept friends and family separate from all that 'private' stuff. Of course there was music, for me probably anything by Leonard Cohen or Gordon Lightfoot. I am a touch older than you after all.
I like your stream of consciousness, I recognize myself in your words.
Thanks and Happy New Year. Hope to see more of your works soon.