Two Sides of Consciousness
Blinds crash down into empty ditches.
Light suffocates.
I cut through unwished language
and break the pointing fingers in half.
Their whispers lay down,
resting still like homeless men
in black holes of my mind.
I lift up, almost take off.
Time forgets its nature,
allows me to breathe unfiltered air.
I float around,
dreaming in between walls of silk.
The pressure returns through my eyes,
they shiver like reed in the blowing wind.
I get thrown back into the unwelcoming arms of responsibility
and the judging looks of hungry foes.
My breath learns punctuation.
My heart beats according to others.
A burning demand stronger than sunbeams,
screams louder than thunderclouds,
and voices,
voices like soaking rain.
Back into nature’s gift
where my pulse jumps at
the speed of a razor blade.
Pictures Unmeant for Postcards
I pass rows of black taxi cars
parked in front of barbed wired,
waiting for their next paycheck to open the door.
Next to gun stores
I see boys and girls barely ten years old,
dancing like featherweights
in the company of drunks and junkies.
I hear dogs bark
louder than emergency sirens,
echoing through streets of
never ending construction.
In the parks
parents run from
tales of murder, rape, and suicide.
I pass over crosswalks,
looking into the social prisons of bars
where students break like guitar strings
and drown in misplaced anger.
Leaves lie dead on the ground,
forgetting naked trees
for the arrival of a white winter.
Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Jim Jas currently works as a software engineer. Jim studied poetry and fiction writing at the University of Sheffield, and he has a bachelor in English from Stockholm University. Jim previously published his work in Route 57.
–Art by Giuseppe Milo