teacher...

when we met tower bells warned us

about Sartre’s rules, about ancient straps

of defense at the bottom of our truths…

our farewell was an anticlimax;

the guarded bough of our lengthy digression

strangled in aborted time.

strangers crept inside and we were lost.

the window was our setting…you on the sill;

me on the floor, searching,

searching beyond your eyes.

light pouring through the panes

of weighted glass always cast

your shadow across my face.

your questions only called for silence;

mine were unasked.

if we cornered an answer in that room,

we trapped ourselves as well.
like the beast of burden, we laid down

and died from the constant demand

upon limited strength.

and it was absorbed in the water-spotted

ceiling, in walls where paint peeled

unevenly, baring contests of the past.

now, it is an anachronism, like me,

it is ancient, clouded, a paradox

of understanding betrayed in a musty library.

it was lost in the corner of insinuation,

in the agonizing rush of realization,

forever recorded in the cracks of this forbidden room

where we approached the bells and silenced them;

where you learned to love and hate simultaneously…

teacher...soliloquies

ja allen