What it Looks Like | Teen Ink

What it Looks Like

June 9, 2017
By NateJones GOLD, Princeton, New Jersey
NateJones GOLD, Princeton, New Jersey
10 articles 0 photos 0 comments

They were there when we bought the house. A pair of little craters in my bedroom window.

The glass isn’t fully destroyed, no opening to the outside, just two small circles like a madman mistook the panes and stuck his pushpins in too deep. Or table saw blades frozen in time.

At the center peeps a stream of air. Sometimes still. Sometimes as a blowing wind nipping  uncovered cheeks while ice skating in Chicago. City of business trips. City of lies.

Little spider webs of cracks birth in the center and crawl out to the perimeter of the circles. Both of them have one or two cracks that slithered too far. They broke the rules. And for that, they should be hanged.

Imperfections give the window personality, so one day when the bartender calls him a “lifeless reporter,” he’ll spit out his drink and tell the story of each tattoo.

Two indents in the panes of my window, like someone making it dropped his contact lenses in before the glass dried. But he was crying. His eyes were spitting them out.

She misses a spot, forgets to wipe it clean. She can never fix him until his time is up. Like backwards binoculars, or looking through a washing machine.

Just two little spots here when we bought the house from the widow.

My room was his office before he died. Littered with ant hills of paper preparing for his next report.

Their story of origin is unclear. Like someone shot a bullet at the window. But they are indented outwards, like he was the one shooting from within.

Trying to get out. And then he did.



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on Nov. 4 2017 at 8:26 pm
alexanha SILVER, Colorado Springs, Colorado
8 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion... But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." - Robin Williams, Dead Poet's Society

Beautiful poem. You're really talented. Keep it up!