Author Information
"Before My Poem Clicks to a Stop"
by Jeph Johnson
mere hours ago,
before 8 pm Friday
(the day we always peak or valley)
I may have wasted
two months
of respect away,
then somehow
sobered enough at midnight
to pull my computer keyboard
though the raw emptiness...
my phone's on the floor
and I'm shivering in my chair
she forgot
to turn on my heater
before she drove away
and in my mind
I'm still huddled around her ankles
as I look down at my own
faded pair of blue jeans
that's what happens
after trying out a new shot glass
nine times in 13 minutes
I think I asked her
while the room was spinning
in my audacity
if she'd apologize
or accept mine
either way
from what I can recall
through the haze
she promised on a post-it
she'd see me again
but I'm frantically,
with tears rolling down my cheeks,
searching my blurry surroundings for it
I believe tonight,
it's buried too far beneath
my blithering idiocy
so I give up looking
to clean some of the
cranberry juice mess
I then press play
on my cassette player
and on the tape
she made for me
a sentiment screams out
in her favorite song:
"let's not get too serious,
just try to stay predictable"
I remember I called her back
before I slept and sobered up
threatening
to further my forgetfulness
by going out to the bar
I hoped that
that way
I was not too seriously
being predictable enough
but she was mad
pissed off’s
how she put it
to her
I was acting like a baby
(not even a child!)
(she always
exaggerates
when it comes to age)
...and she had to
remind me mine...
like I somehow
magically grew up
now that she's in my life!
that's why my telephone
is on the floor
and I never made it to the bar
and I'm lying here colder
than my half-full numbing
plastic cup of vodka-cran
(no, not "half-empty")
for
(in my optimistic
over-analyzing)
tonight I've discovered,
if nothing more:
one of the least-appropriate
ways to deal with
unrequited desire
her tape is set to play
forever on auto-reverse
but luckily it croons my sentiment
in another song right before
my poem clicks to a stop:
"said somethin' I did not mean to say...
said somethin' I did not mean to say...
I said something I did not mean to say...
it all came out the wrong way
come back to me
come back to me
oh baby, please come back to me"
