The Greatest American Novel (Part 1)

The Greatest American Novel (Part 1)

They say,
If you don’t use a language you start to lose it.

I am 2,387 miles from you.
Chased your mariposa echo across the border,
Busting into every bar and brothel on the way,
(To see if you stopped off for a drink (or a fuck)).
And with every step, I start to forget.

Buenos Aires used to be a beautiful city,
Until progress.
Until you.
I even took three semesters of good ol’ Espanol,
So I could understand all those cryptic phone calls.

Our conversation hangs strangling in the gallows,
At a $1.46 a minute every second counts.
My words are kicking feet looking for something to stand on,
I try to connect, but I just forget, and the feet go limp in just one breath
Good Bye’s used to kill you,
But now I’ve forgotten, and it’s voo doo.

Live torture,
Malpracticed acupuncture,
Amnesiac pupils replaced with pushpins,
They’re just periods at the end of sentences like
“Your tongue is a noose in which I hang myself with.”
And “I’m the wetback border breaker that’s escaping the poverty of us.”
It’s amazing what you see when you don’t have to look each other in the face.

And like a stabbed matador that hears the silence of the crowd,
I say ‘You there?’
And you lay silent, wounded, alone, then you say ‘have you forgotten me’
And I don’t speak,
Sometimes silence is more of an answer than words will ever be.