I remember real streets looking like a black-and-white picture
so little color and so much crumble.
I remember the sign of Café Kyril
whose name I always read backwards
and whose doors I never entered.
I remember the empty space asking to be filled
but then somehow I didn’t feel officially invited.
As if there had to be someone handing me a permission slip.
As if there was an invisible threshold to cross.
As if the world didn’t belong to me
not yet, not yet, not yet.
I remember waiting patiently for my time to come
polishing my shoes and brushing my hair.
As if there was a waiting room to the world
the real world, the world of people that matter
and people who run the world
as if, as if, as if.
And nobody bothers to tell you
that nobody will ever call you in
and that nobody is handing out invitations
and that you won’t get any closer by waiting
and that patience won’t pay off
and that the world belongs to nobody
and that you better set one foot in front of the other
and find your own way in.
NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 14: Write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., “Because,” “Forget,” “Not,” “If”)! This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery.
California Journal 