Sometimes you think your brain is a boombox
Which, to translate, means “It’s loud in here,”
And it’s a knockout kind of loud;
The kind that makes the head numb,
Puts distortion fuzz on the edges of familiar things until they’re all made grey
Colors bleed out and seep into the ground out of sight.
Try as you might you can’t adjust the volume
Or change the station;
All you can do is sit there and buzz;
Semitones in your bones.
On days like these you take little white circles to keep the volume down;
ESCITALOPRAM, the bottle says,
Otherwise known as LEXAPRO,
Otherwise known as A WAY TO PUT THE BLUSH BACK ON THE ROSE
THAT HAS LONG SINCE LOST ITS COLOR.
These circles are CDs; all you have is a tape deck.
And sometimes you imagine her,
(she, who does not exist,
But in your faintest dreams might one day lay by your side);
She is not the CD that doesn’t fit in your slots but an old tape,
Eight tracks ranging from anomie to teen sex anxieties,
Sad boy love songs in a plastic case.
HER, it will say on the label,
Otherwise known as YOUR BILDUNGSROMAN,
Otherwise known as THE BLUSH ON THE ROSE,
COME BACK AGAIN,
MADE BRIGHT, FOR ONCE.
When she is turned up loud you wouldn’t mind it one bit,
That’d be the song that you listen to on repeat
Wind it back, and play again
Until the shiny copper-brown tape leaks free from the plastic;
Exposed to the air, it will never make sound again.
Sometimes you imagine her.
But for now you are left with CDs that won’t play,
That, and too much white noise.