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Surviving

Trevor Groves



Words


I could stand if I had to without you


I could stand alone


but nothing would get across


nothing could move


I’d be half a damn suspension bridge


hanging in cartoon space


pulling on air



when I wrote this I wasn’t in a coffee shop


working out what I was going to say about you


in a poem on stage in three minutes flat


I had a flat blocking traffic on the Lion’s Gate bridge


waiting for help killing time no spare no jack


thinking would I survive the dive


the salt smack concrete kiss of sea?



what are my odds at this height these currents that temperature?


what are my odds without you?


I could survive but what’s the good of just surviving?


after the rush of emergency only injuries dull recovery


piling up heart beats


ripping up diaries for fuel to heat up tasteless rations


signaling distress with domestic mess on the bed on the floor


rumpled clothes shouting in semaphore HELP SOS MAYDAY


I need you I need you I got to get something started


and you’re my only match



remember St. Pauls? my bipolar expedition


to the headwaters of my pain


they wouldn’t let me join the crew for the trip back


without the s e c r e t p a s s w o r d s


but it wasn’t true I didn’t want to die I just didn’t


want to live anymore like that out there


near the finish I call you up almost happy



to let you know I can see the end of wilderness


and I really think I’m going to make it out alive


but you know I have a strange sense of humour:


hello? This is Dr. Bad Impersonation Of


are you Mrs. Waiting Anxiously


wife of Mr. On The Edge?


well I’m sorry but he really is on the edge


of the roof of the hospital yes


he says he’s going to jump



dead air free fall eternity


I expect you to laugh say


you’re such a fucking idiot


when are you coming home?


dead air free fall


eternity before I can make you understand


I’m joking about it because now I can



you are why I’m still alive


just living’s never been the point


so ya I could make do if anything happened to you


I’d have to


but making do isn’t making anything at all


getting by


would just take me past what I want


which is you and me and now


and this thing we built


that helps us hold each other up


so love can crawl


bumper to bumper


day in day out


In the rushed hours and speeding years


over the gap that fails


to divide us

Creators

Trevor Groves

Trevor Groves

Trevor Groves is a Vancouver poet, songwriter, occasional slammer. He has performed in vocal groups such as The Next and House of Song and was a regular presence on the Vancouver slam scene for a number of years. His content covers diverse topics, including politics, mental health, and the human condition. Lately, Trevor has taken up the ukulele, affectionately dubbed “Metal Spike”, which has become a new accompaniment as he merges his various talents into wild, wacky, and wonderful ways of just being him.

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