A collection of my poems, both old and new.
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"Sleeping with Carlos"
Awake, asleep
in the hug of an unconscious child
and we fall,
sliding towards the center
in a dreamless,
troubled crawl
of time,
our cardboard mattress padded with
old rags and blind,
night-stunned hope
amidst the shuffle of unshared,
borrowed sheets.
˗ˏˋ・。☆.・゜✭・. AUTHOR'S NOTES ✫・゜・。.・。. ✭
You may or may not believe me (it's generally not recommended) but there was once a time before the internet had been invented. A time before clickbait and search engines and social media and targeted advertising. A magical time before ubiquitous pornography and lurid headlines that promised salacious details if you'd only click the tantalizing link that reads "Canadians Amazed: No One Remains Single After Taking..." As that age of innocence drew inexorably to a close, I hopped that old school bus down to Nicaragua where, a clickbait prophet of our current age, I wrote this poem. You've clicked the title, now let me underwhelm.
As you've already learned, that school bus took me on a long and dusty road led me to the poorest barrio in Managua, to a large family that lived in a small little shack and used all they had to try to keep the neighbourhood from starving. Carlos lived in that little shack and was kind enough to share his tiny bed of rags and cardboard. His parents were kind enough (and had no choice, I suppose, as beds of any sort were few and far between) to trust the sanctity of his person to a young Canadian who couldn't string together enough words in Spanish to even translate a simple poem. I lay awake each night, uncomfortably hot and sweaty in Carlos' tiny sleeping arms, the single sheet of cardboard damp and lumpy beneath my spine as I yearned for a Beautyrest mattress, an air conditioner, and the sound of Canadian-accented English on the summer breeze.
When I returned home, the Internet suddenly existed, shouting from every billboard. Even here in Canada, shiny America On Line CDs gathered in the gutters like so much windblown trash. As I slept, comfortable and alone, a haunting chorus of dial-up modems filled my dreams.
