Somewhere

along the way

she lost herself,

drowned in despair,

and tangled

in a thorny mess,

depression’s twisted lair,

she withered

in the scorching sun,

uprooted by the winds —

tumbled,

in a heap,

undone;

a shell,

without,

within.

It’s hard to say at this latter day

If the Orkin Man or the rainbow bus

Or Amy did more to endanger us.

’Twas the only day that I said “okay,”

Thought, “youth group – why not?”

Dad took me to the parking lot,

I met Alan and Nate to wait

For Cedar Point, the coaster capital,

Lift, drop, loop and fall, all

Excitement a teen could want except

The bus was… yeah, I don’t have words for the bus.

“Somebody donated this wonderful bus to us!” Amy said.

“Amy, there’s a reason for that,” Alan responded.

Navy blue in stained old hue

Applied thirty years ago,

Sporting dingy rainbow

On its side, a nightmare ride

For anyone except a youth group head

With a crazed fixed smile; if you said

“Here’s a glass, and can I ask

Half empty or half full?” You’ll

Be sure that Amy would respond

“There is no water gone!

That glass is full, it will always be full,

We could fill a swimming pool!

Now let’s sing a song!”

So we boarded that bus and—

Half the seats ripped, stuffing loose in several, exposed springs in others.

Also, there was a hole. In the floor. ’Bout the size of a quarter. We could see pavement.

Now inside, Amy smiled and cried,

“We’ll leave real soon,

I’m just over the moon!

The man who will drive should soon arrive.”

We rolled our eyes, but arrive he did

And we realized the guy entrusted with us kids

Was the Orkin Man, yes the Orkin Man.

He pulled up in his Orkin truck,

And we said, “What the”—

You know, that wasn’t really fair of us. Anyone with proper training can drive a commercial vehicle, including a pest control specialist. There are probably lots of Orkin People who drive very well.

He just wasn’t one of them. But in fairness, he got us to the park just fine.

I lost my glasses on a water ride (did I mention I have 20/80 vision?) but damnit, I rode awesome roller coasters. The Raptor rules.

We rode till the night with the park alight,

Got our old friend Nate

To stop fearing fate

And just decide to enjoy coaster rides;

I was glasses-less and blind

But I did not mind.

We returned to our chariot,

Junk food in our guts.

Having roamed, we’d go home.

Rainbow bus on the road,

Us in back with dirty jokes,

Still kinda wired but starting to tire.

Rolling down the highway, I’d say

Twenty minutes, maybe forty,

-Awful metal on metal screech-

The bus pulls over, confusion all over,

I’m squinting but can’t see out,

Loud as hell, Alan shouts,

“THE ORKIN MAN HIT A CAR!”

Orkin Man goes off the bus, cursing us

And fate and bus, I assume,

But the cops came soon.

We were sitting there an hour,

Nothing in our power

But to be wiseasses.

Even without glasses

I could see eventually

When he came back aboard

Orkin Man was unmoored,

And he yelled “Shut up!”

As though to quiet us.

He pulled into a burger joint

Just an hour from Cedar Point

(With steady driving).

Orkin Man’s nerves were shot:

Leaving the parking lot,

Backed the bus into a pole.

Down the road we rolled.

We looked through the floor hole,

Alan said, “Sparks! I can see blue sparks!”

And I wondered if I was about to die.

Couple kids made a mess with the rest

Of the stuffing for fun on the trip,

Pulled it out through some seat rips

Made a foam pile, all the while

The bus drove on toward the early dawn

Albeit not very well, cuz the muffler fell

And rolled down a hill, but we did not die.

[This story is entirely real, and I still have a picture of the bus to prove it.]

Look at the mess you made.

I'm shattered on the floor.

Pieces of my heart are scattered,

lost in the corners and hidden beneath furniture.

Wisps of my soul are floating away.

I'm broken, and I don't know how to fix it.

You were always the one to put me back together;

what do I do now that you were the one to destroy me?

My mother doesn’t like when I wash the dishes,

“Making her floors a mess.”

I have not mastered the containment of water,

have not engineered strict tunnels and pools, or

learned to press it around gently, just right.

I take a bowl in hand,

move around suds and dirt,

hum and sway,

sing a song,

dance,

rinse,

rack,

dance.

There is no room for precision in my body.

I fall down stairs trying to float.

My family no longer asks who fell. Or if I’m okay.

They know I am clumsy

and free

and fine.

They were ours.

They consisted of old Indian food containers, piles of papers and drafts falling over, precariously balanced books and plants spilling over their pots. Coats flung on floors and crumpled, wrinkled bedsheets. Old coffee in almost every cup, sheet music just about everywhere and weird, miscellaneous objects we’d use for bookmarks.

The yelling at the beginning of the day trying to find our earbuds and keys which would be under seven layers of something. The loud traffic right outside the window and the club music that would sometimes rattle our windows. The music from the 80s we’d blare daily or the radio podcast that always got played as we cooked dinner (which was rare).

They were spastic and annoying and you’d trip over something every few seconds, but I kinda miss our mess.

After you moved out, the kitchen is too bare, no music really sounds right and the stacks of books aren’t as quite as high. I miss the mess of your laugh at midnight as we danced, the mess of how you tried to make coffee in the oven once, the mess of your shoes you protested to putting away, and the mess of us.

All of it, it was so messy.

But so were we.

There's a string in the ceiling

Right in the center of it

poking out, protruding out, prodding out

Linked to the drywall, but not reality

A friend once asked me

‘Is it to a light?’

I gave it a tug and a yank

It was not; still only a mystery

It’s a thin string, a weak string

It could snap!

If you pulled too hard

If you put too much tension--stress--on it

It could break

You could break

I hated that string

It didn’t belong

It wasn’t like the string of fairy lights I had

Hung around my room

It was different; I tried to change that

So, one day, I gave it another yank

Not to test it; to break it

And with that tug, it snapped

Not the string, but the ceiling

It collapsed around me

Insulation piled at me

The air was choked with particles

I was choked with tears

What a mess of my room I have made

With one swift action

What a mess of my life I have made

By putting too much stress on you

Back then it was okay to tear

paper in half

while listening endlessly

to the drone

of story over and over.

Soon my pile of paper halves grew

unwieldy and soft

and I received a warning better not

let any of it drop

but the softness of it all defeated.

Paper only tears in half and half

so many times.

The paper became tissue but no one

better sneeze it to drift.

And still the drone produced more mess.

#poem #mess #paper #half #sfharper #sherifresonkeharper #poet

Technically, I was the one who started this,

I opened up,

Spilled my soul.

Others unhappy with my truth,

How it unearthed bad blood.

They had to face their flaws through my eyes.

But it left me alone and friendless.

As they all turned their backs on me one by one.

Wounded by my words,

Totally ostacized.

Unfriended on social media,

Considered toxic.

I hurt everyone beyond repair,

Though it was never my intention.

Once things were said,

Though I tried,

They wouldn't let me take them back.

My words,

My mess,

And I'm left with the wreckage.

i am a mess

and i guess

im afraid

if we fade

and ill be on my own

all alone

with the thoughts in my head

and think all i never said

and ill see me

or even be

so much less

and an even bigger mess