Notes From The Overground

You do not have to worry, I am maintaining radio silence
Those serrated plastic knobs spun right-to-left with sun-shaped fake press-on wood
Have been turned down to the infinite nothing of zero
There isn’t anything but the sonic pulse that tells you nothing is coming through
I’ve erased your cellphone number although I can still recall it by heart
Every time I drink your favorite red drink with my Northwest/206 friends
And every time that song that doesn’t mean anything plays on the jukebox

I have mastered short wave radio, know the greetings & salutations
Know the frustration of announcing you’re on the radio before speaking
Like modern communication should have made us better at saying
What fits & lives between the seams of put together things
Every time I take the backroads I think of a new handle
To fool those who remember the last time they heard my monotone
While they were enclosed in the safe tin & steel of interiors

Cradling the comfort of static like an old time gramophone
Everything sounds better on vinyl LP’s, baby
Old things are more worn in, burnished leather & the smell of Jack Daniels
The thrill is long & I’ve got so much time out here
Recalling the conversations about low-grade sorrow & surrounding afflictions
Sick of this silence that makes me forget the back alley alcoves & smell
Of your perfume that I would wash out of my sheets weeks later

There’s nothing as disheartening as the click finger communication of Morse
Waiting for the next long & short tone to come over the copper wire
The harrowing shudders of divorce hanging on me like poor reasons
I remember the times we recycled over & over again to be back at the same place
And now I have to remember not to call you & maintain this closed-eye, closed-mouth
Radio silence where the violent need is to tell you…she looks just like you
And looks are quiet when there’s nothing left I should say
© Adam Bresson

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