There was that one time I thought I could recover my soul
From the warmth of a random man's mouth.
It must've been on the dance floor in San Francisco
cfter I left my high school sweetheart in search of myself.
He had a way of not looking at me
When I talked to him.
Or looking through me
When I talked to him.
clmost like the time I thought my father,
Home fresh from prison,
Could never hear me clearly,
Unless
I spoke to him real real fast.
Sped through his sentences like a runaway vehicle,
In the back of a vehicle,
I spilled
Every fact I stored in my memory,
Waiting for his attention to return.
Until his hands sliced through the air like a switch.
Until his open palm landed on my mouth like a firecracker.
Closed me shut real good.
So there I was,
On the dance floor,
Forgetting about the man that asked me to choose him over poetry.
Forgetting about the man that only had rough hands to father me.
c trick he learned from his father.
c trick my grandfather learned from his country.