{"id":12501,"date":"2019-03-12T07:49:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T05:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12501"},"modified":"2019-03-10T23:51:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T21:51:19","slug":"poems-by-sam-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=12501","title":{"rendered":"poems by Sam Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Television<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The television talks to nobody.<\/p>\n

(Nobody is home, and nobody is listening.)<\/p>\n

Why does it press on, forecasting scattered showers<\/p>\n

when nobody will be around to see it,<\/p>\n

reporting the news with nobody to care about it,<\/p>\n

showing the most lavish lifestyles, the tastiest recipes,<\/p>\n

the most fantastical stories, all to an empty house?<\/p>\n

Nobody is there. Why does the television continue?<\/p>\n

The radio doesn\u2019t. The radio knows when its time is up,<\/p>\n

but the television is hopeful,<\/p>\n

like a dog waiting for its owner to come home.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The television is at full volume.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s shouting to be heard<\/p>\n

but all anyone can do is walk by the house and tut.<\/p>\n

The neighbours have complained.<\/p>\n

They haven\u2019t been able to hear their own television,<\/p>\n

no matter how hard it tries to compete.<\/p>\n

They have rung the doorbell and tried the door,<\/p>\n

but that is no competition<\/p>\n

for the journalist reporting from Syria, or the Loose Women,<\/p>\n

or the cast of Coronation Street, who gather<\/p>\n

in the living room of that house, all day and all night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The neighbours can\u2019t sleep. Their dog howls.<\/p>\n

Every day they knock on the door<\/p>\n

and every day they are ignored.<\/p>\n

The clock on the mantelpiece times their visits.<\/p>\n

Every evening after six.<\/p>\n

They want to eat their dinner in peace.<\/p>\n

(They can\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

The Russian dolls standing by the fireplace<\/p>\n

wonder why the neighbours don\u2019t call the police.<\/p>\n

They wonder what the neighbours would do<\/p>\n

if they knew who the television was playing to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If a television is on but the owner of the home<\/p>\n

is too dead to watch it, does it still make a sound?<\/p>\n

Why, yes it does.<\/p>\n

The television talks to nobody.<\/p>\n

Somebody is home, but nobody is listening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gasps between Words<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

He stumbled from room to room, from reason to reason.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m drunk, there is an excuse for what I do<\/em>, he said.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m hungover, there\u2019s a reason for feeling as bad as I do<\/em>, he said.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a day he didn\u2019t dread waking into, not a<\/p>\n

night he didn\u2019t beat himself around the head with<\/p>\n

excuses for being the way he is, excuses for signs he misread.<\/p>\n

And the feeling he was looking in the wrong place hung over<\/p>\n

him, the numbness that the pain had turned into as he<\/p>\n

continuously clobbered himself with his own heavy thoughts,<\/p>\n

persisted like a black cloud that he so wanted others to see, but<\/p>\n

they didn\u2019t. They didn\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe if he beat himself up a bit more, got a little more<\/p>\n

rough around the edges they would see and ask and be<\/p>\n

concerned, because that was the only way that he<\/p>\n

could communicate, the only way he could tell everyone<\/p>\n

what was wrong, otherwise there was just silence, just<\/p>\n

deafening gaps – if only people would listen more closely to<\/p>\n

the gasps between his words, those desperate pleas for<\/p>\n

air or to be heard, those words that look so simple written<\/p>\n

down but that he couldn\u2019t find a way to say, and that\u2019s<\/p>\n

why he stumbled from room to room, from reason to reason,<\/p>\n

clobbering himself with his own heavy thoughts; because it<\/p>\n

was the only way that he could express what he couldn\u2019t find<\/p>\n

the words to say.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Off The Rails<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are good and bad ways to deal with things.<\/p>\n

Writing is right and drinking is wrong. I know this.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s fun somehow to pretend for one night that<\/p>\n

I am going off the rails, I am losing control. If you\u2019ve<\/p>\n

lost control how can you have any responsibility?<\/p>\n

If things go wrong it\u2019s not really your fault, and<\/p>\n

nobody is going to put you in charge of anything \u2013<\/p>\n

not even yourself \u2013 if you\u2019re a loose cannon. I often<\/p>\n

think it would be easier to run so far that I can\u2019t<\/p>\n

even see those rails in the distance anymore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brain Space<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ve finally figured it out:<\/p>\n

I have a capacity problem.<\/p>\n

When something\u2019s all I can think about<\/p>\n

it\u2019s taking up too much brain space<\/p>\n

and there\u2019s no room left for that place<\/p>\n

in my head that tells me to breathe<\/p>\n

I need a bigger hard drive<\/p>\n

to keep myself staying alive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why when I\u2019m trying to work I just sigh<\/p>\n

because I\u2019m huffing and puffing and<\/p>\n

trying to breathe, just trying to catch my breath.<\/p>\n

At least it\u2019s not fear this time,<\/p>\n

fear is the worst, that\u2019s when it most hurts<\/p>\n

but now it\u2019s just nothing, nothing thoughts,<\/p>\n

pointless thoughts, blank thinking while somehow<\/p>\n

still thinking about it<\/em>, that thing that takes up<\/p>\n

so much brain space and leaves no room<\/p>\n

to breathe, no room for doing other things<\/p>\n

like not thinking of it<\/em>, scarier than anything<\/p>\n

Stephen king could concoct, not something<\/p>\n

lurking in the drains, but<\/p>\n

a big black cloud in the middle of my head<\/p>\n

that gets bigger and bigger the more it\u2019s fed,<\/p>\n

its fog spewing into every crevice, what a mess –<\/p>\n

what a mess this brain space is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Teetering<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s like I can see myself<\/p>\n

teetering on the edge of a cliff<\/p>\n

and I don\u2019t know how to save myself<\/p>\n

I\u2018m the only person around<\/p>\n

who has the equipment to<\/p>\n

pull me back up<\/p>\n

but I don\u2019t know how to use it.<\/p>\n

When did the cliff edge get so close?<\/p>\n

I had been doing so well<\/p>\n

but I don\u2019t know how I was doing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Television   The television talks to nobody. (Nobody is home, and nobody is listening.) Why does it press on, forecasting scattered showers when nobody will be around to see it,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1369,77],"tags":[1370,1123,1377],"class_list":["post-12501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-57","category-english","tag-egophobia-57","tag-english","tag-sam-rose"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3fD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12502,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12501\/revisions\/12502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}