The Slumbering Tongue (2011)
Original Story
February 16, 2016
*Originally written in March, 2011*
This is one of my more deceivingly good ones. I don't mean to brag, but "The Slumbering Tongue" was written when I was in a great zone, creatively. Things were going well at this point. Drawing closer to the end of sophomore year, life was good and I didn't dread waking up anymore to head to classes I didn't want to go to. Don't get me wrong, I still skipped some classes. Sorry, alma mater.
I was sitting on my (at the time) girlfriend's bed, and leaning up against her wall, dribbling my pen against the blank notepad. We were sitting perpendicular and on opposite ends of the bed. Her up by the head board, sitting properly. Me, at the foot of the bed like a dog, feet dangling off the edge. She was staring intently at the biology homework that we should have been working on together. I never bothered with that class. Fortunately my professor and I enjoyed the [adult swim] block on late nights. It helped me out.
She was so set on passing every class with ease and I just never got my studious nature under me until my last semester two years later, when it really counted. At least in my eyes. She was studying, I was drumming and between the silence, we would look at each other and smile half-assedly. I would ask "What's up?" She would say "Nothing." And we did that for a couple of hours.
It was around this time where there was a definite change in the air. The honeymoon period was coming to an abrupt end and with the pressures of the late semester pile of work, along with personal stress on both ends, the connection was starting to fade a bit. I was, admittedly, annoyed at her lack of verbal communication and essentially foreshadowed my own demise.
"The Slumbering Tongue" is a piece about the importance of words and their literal and subliminal effect on situations. The last verse is one of my favorites I've ever written. I think it's clever, but then again, I'm easy to please. Half-joking aside, I'm very pleased with this piece and consider it a 'sleeper hit' in my collection.
Without further adieu:
*Originally written in March, 2011*
This is one of my more deceivingly good ones. I don't mean to brag, but "The Slumbering Tongue" was written when I was in a great zone, creatively. Things were going well at this point. Drawing closer to the end of sophomore year, life was good and I didn't dread waking up anymore to head to classes I didn't want to go to. Don't get me wrong, I still skipped some classes. Sorry, alma mater.
I was sitting on my (at the time) girlfriend's bed, and leaning up against her wall, dribbling my pen against the blank notepad. We were sitting perpendicular and on opposite ends of the bed. Her up by the head board, sitting properly. Me, at the foot of the bed like a dog, feet dangling off the edge. She was staring intently at the biology homework that we should have been working on together. I never bothered with that class. Fortunately my professor and I enjoyed the [adult swim] block on late nights. It helped me out.
She was so set on passing every class with ease and I just never got my studious nature under me until my last semester two years later, when it really counted. At least in my eyes. She was studying, I was drumming and between the silence, we would look at each other and smile half-assedly. I would ask "What's up?" She would say "Nothing." And we did that for a couple of hours.
It was around this time where there was a definite change in the air. The honeymoon period was coming to an abrupt end and with the pressures of the late semester pile of work, along with personal stress on both ends, the connection was starting to fade a bit. I was, admittedly, annoyed at her lack of verbal communication and essentially foreshadowed my own demise.
"The Slumbering Tongue" is a piece about the importance of words and their literal and subliminal effect on situations. The last verse is one of my favorites I've ever written. I think it's clever, but then again, I'm easy to please. Half-joking aside, I'm very pleased with this piece and consider it a 'sleeper hit' in my collection.
Without further adieu:
The Slumbering Tongue
Words so light,
Float on like paperplanes in the dawn.
Where they land;
We hope we know,
So long as they’re not buried in the snow.
The way we lie so still at night
Carries us through the morn.
When we wake, it’s as if reborn.
The ink is still wet;
The static from your radio is the ceaseless alarm.
Effortless smiles;
We awake to eyes so true,
Like the ocean blue your words sail over.
The words better left unsaid
Are worse when read while written down.
It takes emotion to speak
And only a motion to write.
So who really is wrong?
Who really is right?
-end-
Float on like paperplanes in the dawn.
Where they land;
We hope we know,
So long as they’re not buried in the snow.
The way we lie so still at night
Carries us through the morn.
When we wake, it’s as if reborn.
The ink is still wet;
The static from your radio is the ceaseless alarm.
Effortless smiles;
We awake to eyes so true,
Like the ocean blue your words sail over.
The words better left unsaid
Are worse when read while written down.
It takes emotion to speak
And only a motion to write.
So who really is wrong?
Who really is right?
-end-
