"They spoke to me... "

¡Hola! Everybody,
I’m working this weekend.

I was offered another apartment yesterday. This one is rent stabilized and I can move into it immediately. However, it’s a crazy commute and it’s not as nice as the garden apartment (which is walking distance to work). The expense will come out the same (garden apartment is utilities included), but I have to wait until June for the garden apartment. Decisions, decisions…

The following was written many years ago, but I still find it relevant and I wonder how a young man could’ve written such words…

* * *

Yesterdays [no. 2]

They spoke to me in words always clear,
offering those timeless personal messages.

Clichés back to back,
a thousand punch lines strung together
like beads of wisdom, requiring no reply

never needing answers.

Why was it that I could never thank them
in their own tongue?

A dialogue with an answering machine
is all they ever offered me.

They came barging into my head
whenever it pleased them
but I could return their visits
only by an invitation
that never arrived.

Edward-Yemil Rosario ©