Razor / June 18, 2009 by stephenherronold

Each time I stand in front of a mirror,
confronting myself, razor in hand,
|I go through the same old routine
Hot water (as hot as you can stand, my father said),
Just a little too much foam or gel dripping between fingers on my left hand
I smear it across my face, like a little kid
Who hasn't quite grown up.

As I start to scrape away the tough few days of growth
My mind always touches upon the same place and time.

Standing in the Broughshane bathroom in the summer of 89
As I stand guard, feeding the cats and house-sitting.
She's in France with her mother and father.
I'm alone, with the bright August morning outside, with the hot water (as hot as you can stand) and the careful tracing of razor over face begins

Somehow, when steel kisses skin, I'm back there.
Every time I shave, it's that time I shaved.
That house, that bathroom, that morning,
Twenty years ago.

A lifetime of ritual reduced
To a single bittersweet time and place
Anticipating a future that never happened.

String Theory / May 4, 2009 by stephenherronold

I can't believe it's been a year since I wrote this poem, but some things never change.
Today is one of those days, where the paper gets so thin that you can read some of the pages beneath it.

I originally submitted this poem to AbcTales.com last April. It was "Cherry Picked" by the editors. I have some more poems and stories over there, if you're interested.

String Theory
Some days touch
Many others, all at once
piled on top of one another
a tangled ball of string.
This is one of those days.

Thoughts bob up
from beneath memory's ocean
and suddenly I'm drowning
in a hundred different days
going back thirty plus years

It's not all bad.
Some are good, some are sad,
Some make me smile

(nearly Easter twenty four years ago
aching with the flu, watching tiny dots out my bedroom window,
walking over Cave Hill, knowing those are my classmates
wondering which small dot is her.)

Then it's over, and the thin leaves
of the book of my days dries out
and I can't read through
to the other pages any more.

Not all at once
Just in the usual way, one word at a time.