Cliché


I think there’s comfort in the cliché
I feel it in my bones when she smiles a mile wide
No longer cold as ice it’s like a new lease on life
I am a safe pair of hands building a fool’s paradise
I am ablaze with light and all that jazz
The apple of my eye bending over backwards for you
But never bites off more than she can chew
Gives credit where credit is due
Etcetera, until it’s old news

But life is not these predictable easily placed phrases all at once
It’s more jagged
More raw
More real

Sometimes her eyes are rough dirt
Clawing at anything it can touch to pull her mouth above the surface
And she spits out her words, nouns, verbs
Sometimes she is not cold
She is nothing
And that nothing burns like frostbite
It stings like rejection that’s never solidified
It breathes like a volcano eruption & stains your flesh like a memory
A memory you thought was gone until you heard their name
On that cloudy winter morning surrounded by
Your on and off friends of three years
You know, the ones that get you by
Not high, not happy, not inspired, hardly laughing
They just stop to pass through like a poltergeist
I think there’s comfort in that pit in your soul
That black hole that bites instead of sucks
It grows legs and walks you
Like a pet with its head low always
It’s normal to be the unwanted hallway
One that holds no room for visitation
A broken neon light that says “VACANT”

Maybe you should get that fixed
Maybe there’s still time for the hanged man to change and understand
These complicated conscious statements of reality
Maybe I can hold my polars on a balance beam
Maybe I should open at the close
Close what’s open
Back and forth forever
And at that center I will have found peace
The sweet spot
A bed of roses
A flower by any other name
I’ll find my own
Brand of cliché

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Phillip Saint John is a poet at his core. Before becoming a musician he had excelled in his artistic writing abilities at school in Hastings, Minn., where there is plenty of nature to contemplate life's greater mysteries. Always one to put his foot in more than one door, he has been actively writing short poems and spoken word pieces over the last four years in order to broaden the way he entertains and grows with his audience. Contact Phillip at Zerexiam@gmail.com.

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