By Pride & The Nighttime

Tereso

Here he is, growing backwards,
However you want to call it.
Spiralling down the pole of real life
While looking up at the hole in the ceiling
Where the people who’ve brought him here
Look down with their real expressions,
Their true personalities, and their honest opinons
Naked finally in his eyes. He sees their deception.
Abandoned Now, he is alone. Now he is terrified.
Finally in his own two-bedroom In the city he was born and raised in,
And although he always escaped it,
He absorbed its energy in his family's house,
That upside down house where he was a
Retired senior in a middle aged body
With an adolescent’s mind.
Now his living space is cut in half.
He has lost access to drivers.
Groceries don’t magically appear.
Food is no longer served anytime.
And now his decision making has multiplied,
His power to control has magnified,
His mistakes are all his.
This time the rebel has his cause,
The artist has his inspiration,
The performer has his script:
To save his own soul from death,
Hoping he makes it out
Even if just barely alive.

Tereso


The faded-white seashell sat on the beige sand. Beside it,
I heard the wind blow through my hair.

Where did that come from? I wondered,
and closed my eyes. Spreading my arms out to my sides,
I tried to hug the air.

All I heard iwas water gushing toward me,
and then away from me,
up and down, louder and quieter.

I reached for the shell beside me.
I ran my palm around its smooth dome.
I gently dug my nails into each groove.
I did not hear any pain.

The brush of sandals on the beach
Swishing the sand on either side,
Two to a beat, came close to me.

“Ow!” I shouted as the heavy sandals crushed my foot.

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry! So sorry! I wasn’t looking!” he said.

The pain disappeared in few seconds,
but pictures flooded my mind,
and they hurt harder than a flattened toe:

Faces of my family blurred and blended with each other.
Silently, pale skin and black hair rotated in front of me,
like cotton candy being spun.

“Here’s your coconut water,” he said,
as I was jolted out of my vision.

“Let’s go home?” I asked.

“Sure, love, if that’s what you want. I’ll get the car.”

As he scurried off through the sand,
I returned to the cotton candy machine in my mind.

“This is all I have to say to all of you,”
I softly tell the spinning heads:

"My trial with you is over.
I’ve left a lot behind.
I won’t see you anymore.
Don’t bother keeping me in your prayers.

Your voices are all gibberish; I know you’re saying goodbye.
You’ll turn over in your beds, and you won’t know why.
A simple no, thank you, is all I have left to give,
I refuse your charity just to live another day."

And in these few seconds, my eyesight returned.
And I saw them clearly, my family burned in the bonfire.
They made me feel smaller, like I deserved to go to hell.
I kept my ears open instead
To my own voice and mind.

If seeing is believing
then I'd rather be blind.

By Pride & the Nighttime

by Pats Poblador

Express your emotions, thoughts or give us feedback about what you read, listened to or felt. We will try to get back to you soon from the moon.