Communication Build-Up, from Martin

Communication Build-Up

I’m bouncing on a bus listening to one side of a cell phone conversation. A thousand miles away or just across town I see her legs cross and uncross. I see her cradling a coffee mug two-handed with the apprehension of a child, the receiver resting on a bent shoulder, a bra strap and her ear.

I hear one side of the conversation, all the molested syllables and high-fructose intonations, like someone is speaking to a foreigner and so they shout, and I’m hearing one side of this conversation and I think someone must be heartbroken.

I’m picturing her looking out a window full of tears and I see her pupils fused to the corneas that weeks or years ago absorbed that first frozen-in-forever kiss, that gazed at his so-strong smile, all this leading to the meta-present nuclear heartbreak.

And I’m hearing forecasts as if the person I’m sitting next to is an emotional meteorologist and I’m hearing so much of this one-sided conversation that I don’t need to hear the other side because I’ve put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle that grew damp in a basement, and the knobs still fit together and it’s fragile and the colored paper is pulling away from the cardboard backing but I can still make out the picture.

And I keep listening to one side of this conversation as if I’m stalking birds in an orange vest and every word is hidden in the grass near a pond and my finger is on the trigger just waiting for a vowel-speck to fly up into the sky where telephones wires can be, well, they can be anywhere these days, that’s why I’m always hearing one side of these conversations.

by martin balgach
originally appeared at www.OpiumMagazine.com