long time coming

John K Samson (Weakerthans) - Hypothetical

Say you wake up one morning without a language
Not lost, but taken away
Stolen by a monster from childhood fever from some small slight
- You didn't eat your peas
Do you weep
Or lie back down?
Begin to plan a day of watching shadows wander towards the door
or smelling the garbage and touching the furniture
Pressing your face to the radiator
Walking with eyes open, eyes closed
Living without naming
Unnamed

Say you wake up one morning without a body
You miss your hands like a dead friend
You play their favorite songs, mourn all their potentials
- what they held
Make a missing poster for your heart
With a description, a photo and a phone number
Find your ribcage full of topsoil in a garden down the street
With transplanted yellow flowers peeking out

Say you wake up one morning without the world
The world leaves you for another, never returns your calls
Passes you on the street like a stranger
All you seem able to do is eat potato chips, cry
and drink warm vodka from a jam jar and watch tv
The National Geographic specials seem especially cruel
Secrets of the Amazon, Plains of the Serengeti
And tearing up topographical maps doesn't make you feel better.

Say you wake up one morning without me
Say I just disappear, crawl back into the suburbs that spat me out
Do you organize a search party or burn my letters?
Does you language take a black marker to the words that I use too often?
Does your body remember mine?
And will the world look like it's going to say something and then just shrug