A Poem About Nothing

Nothing

That’s what escaped your mouth

So entered all sorts of doubt

About

You and me

And what we could be

Because you’ve said nothing

Over the past weeks

You just wander past my desk

Without a greeting

Without our eyes meeting

And with my heart bleeding on my new shirt

It’s not that this is creating hurt

It’s not like we’re something yet

But we can’t be nothing

So I end up all upset

Canvasing the room for a glance from you

Knowing that there should be something I could do

But nothing comes

And nothing leaves

Then bushels of questions wreathe

Through my layers

Because although we aren’t holding hands

We’re in the same card game

We’re both players

Ok, well I’m probably not a “player”

But I think I have game

Anyway we need to find something better to talk about

Than our battles with the mundane

Right now the conversation has diminished to a faint heartbeat

When I need questions to knock me off my feet

And you are a questioner

You like to bathe in inquiries

So start asking

Give me material to thrust in my diaries

Don’t leave us up to some bland party chatter

Climb my mind

I’ll hand you the ladder

But nothing could leave me sadder

Than this nothingness

This love limbo

That no one wants to dive beneath

It’s the holidays

And although neither of us would put up a wreath

We both like to speak

 Is nothing simply being meek

Although I feel like an antique

Loving old traditions and courtesy

There has to be more than a nod and curtsy

There has to be language

A dialogue

Now I don’t need it to be complex

I’m already reading Beckett’s Endgame

But I can’t bear our relationship taking on that play’s name

As some popstar declared “Let’s get it started in here!”

Those lyrics are probably wrong

But we can have an argument about how I can’t remember any song

Or whether putting your heart in poetry and sharing it is right or wrong

Or how I’ll slaughter you if you pick up a bong

Because I’m a good girl

My favorite hobby is wandering through rhetoric’s swirls

Don’t buy me a string of pearls, that’s unnecessary

But how about a string of sentences

I know that silences are loud

But I want to scream

I need to travel through your hopes and dreams

And find my place there

This may be over exaggerated

Because I’m a square

But I’d like to be a circle

To connect the dots of my soul

I’d like to understand

Why I dream about true love and rock and roll

Why reality takes such a harsh toll

How to find beauty in my marks

How my universe is filled with chaos

Yet inside things remain stark

How I bite when I don’t know how to bark

Or why I’m so sensitive but appear like a shark

But I don’t know any of these things

I don’t know anything

I know nothing

But do I?

I’m not sure what that means

Now it isn’t just between you and me

It’s about streams

Of consciousness

And unconsciousness

You lingering within my dreams

We weren’t always together

But you see

When we coalesced I felt free

But not liberated

Because in those sentences

I never stated my hope

Of a probability of a possibility

Of emerging from nothingness

You should ask me to prom

But you won’t

You should come meet my mom

But you won’t

You should act like Shakespeare’s Poor Tom

But don’t

Because you’re making me crazy already

And insanity amongst us two

Is too much for the vanity of the world we knew

Or know

Or want to go

Can nothing move

Can it wobble into a groove

Can it decipher, contemplate, and choose

Because sometimes I feel like nothing

And I’ve chosen you

And in lieu of choosing

I’m going to decide

To end this poetic ride

And simply pray you’ll open your eyes

Or rather mouth

And try to find what I’m all about

Because I don’t really like to shout

I want whispers to tiptoe along me

So put your tongue into motion

And emotion

Cause some commotion

Nothing is order

And order is nothing

And boring

It’s time to be touring each other

Come on brother

Or dude

Or man

It’s time to take our nothing

And crush it within your beautiful hands.