Shut Up!

Written by my brother about twenty years ago, this is the first poem I ever read, and it was my inspiration to start writing poetry in my teenage years:


Shut up!

She wouldn’t shut up that first day I met her.
She wouldn’t shut up no matter how long and hard I pleaded.
She wouldn’t shut up even as my ears began to bleed in agony.
She wouldn’t shut up even after I fell asleep and when I woke up the next morning.
She would not shut up while I made breakfast and ate it.
She would not shut up as I ran from my house, never looking back.
But I tell you this, friends. She did shut up when I finally let her go.

- Sean



For twenty years, I foolishly read this poem thinking of myself as the "I" in the relationship. Like a damned fool, it took me two decades to identify with the "She."

Thank you, Sean, for inspiring me, even when I didn't really 'get' it. You were always a few steps ahead of me in some things. I appreciate the advice, even if I didn't take it.

Cracks and Textures

I've sat in this asylum for longer than I can remember. The most I'd moved was the distinct rock forward and back, my shoulders swaying to a tune only I could hear. My forehead would come within centimeters of the white wall. Long ago I used to hit the wall with my head, but they put a stop to that quick enough. My eyes wide open, my nearsightedness has been an advantage. I can pick out the little cracks and textures of the wall. I've memorized them. They'd come into focus with each forward rock, and blur with each lean back. They were my cracks and textures. This was my wall. This was my little bit of this big world.

So, when the therapists came, and they showed me what the world looks like when you aren't just staring at the same wall all day, I was impressed by the colors and all the new things to see. Everything was a blur. I'd never needed glasses before, and I chose to give no indication I needed them now. I just enjoyed watching the blurs. I would giggle like a little school girl, and bounce up and down.

"I want that! I want that!" I would scream as I bounced.

"Thank you," I'd tell them. "I am so happy to finally see all this! There is so much here! I love it all."

I wish I had told them I could only see a few inches past my own nose. I wish they'd told me seeing all this, standing among it all day and being expected to remember the significance of all the little details, would be so exhausting.

It didn't take long before I missed my wall. I missed the familiar cracks and textures.

Then she stepped up close to me, and hooked her arms around my neck. I rocked forward and back, and she rocked with me. She pulled my face down close to hers, so her nose touched mine. Her blue eyes smiled up at me. I knew her. She came to visit all the time. I think she was my wife, but I couldn't remember exactly. All I knew from the way she looked at me was that she thought of me as fondly as I thought of my wall. She knew all my cracks and textures. She had memorized every one of them. I was her little bit of this big world. I was her wall.

I wondered if she wanted to be my wall, too.

Mirror

"[...] when we come face-to-face with the monsters, we may find ourselves looking not at a mask but at a mirror."

- Ramsey Campbell, "Avoiding What's Been Done to Death"