Displacement

"What if we've been trying to get to where we've always been."

You come crashing down the 7:20
into AC and I'm myself again, the little boy
in front of the camera spouting jokes and stories
and loose associations, I'm late because
I was singing and have a poor memory,
Not like your pencil-notebook precision,
I'm obnoxious again, I'm all out, self-doubt
aside or at least verbalized.
I hold all this in usually and then
You arrive and it all comes spilling out.
I'm trying to tie down myself for the change
Running through every place I will be and have been
Trying to hold onto something, trying to
find myself amid the rush of memories and what's coming,
Throwing myself at songs, poems, waves, water shows,
To drown out the sad thoughts
The leavings.
Every minute and place is a complex web of associations,
comparisons, possibilities, we could do better,
we could do more, we could be
adventurers instead of story-tellers, but
I guess it's not settling if it's your dream and in a breakneck muttertv-society
we don't even know our own
Thread brother, sister, continuities,
I wish I was more like you more brick,
We'll miss each other by one hour,
one day, one phrase that throws us into thought
or distrust. We'll miss the show by two and
I'll run right past you before I pick up the phone,
I'm restless with the lack of intensity, lazing beach
I defer on so many things, I don't start conversations,
even though you're here for me,
I'm the center of attention but I'd rather just be invisible
And frame your frames and faces, listen, sit, be present,
And hear your beloved voices that remind me yes,
you are still here, and you're not afraid of me, yes,
you accept my presence. I want to lock-in your faces,
your words, your wisdom, mental pictures. Mine(d) is
washing-machine tumbling all these things
in a soapy sea inside, stuck inside
laundering future memories
for the sake of sanity.