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The following can also be found in the book Jasonettes. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy; or click here for the rules to writing a Jasonette.

In my Missouri
kitchen I listened to the
insane sounds of the music blaring
So how would I know I would meet you
seven years after that epiphanous moment and how
each time we kissed
Dim memories of champagne and orange juice would come
haunting back into memory?

Every poetic line
read by me now is
wondrously filled with hidden metaphors, each
hidden until you squeezed them out between the cracks

I wonder what our metaphor might possibly be.

Loud guitar screeching silently
Esoteric art school dropout rambling lyrics on scratchy vinyl
Two-toned CD cases
Heat from your
economic thighs now burning fuel
V12 engine no one would guess
inside the wood-paneled chassis you call temporary home
Never quite admitting that home might be home
Yet never quite denying

Lust is a four-letter word you've reintroduced by
spinning minty fresh platters
Piling way up
on the world-weary stereo
Neat clutters alongside cataloging your life
in order of genre, in order of artist, label
When you wish your life stacked so nicely

Order is something I
never assume I can have again but can only
dream of getting back
Every shiny disk
rolled into black plastic shelf
wears me out a little more
Hearts can only be worn on sleeves so long
and then they're stabbed so often they stop
Tweeters can only tweet
Ink can only purloin so much before I simply
just fuck you silly
under the watchful
Sebadoh eyes of past mistakes

The fingers of my hands tremble
because the necks of the guitars tremble also and
Each failed garage band we love is a
grand metaphor for the
underground indie love we may or may not have
Never sure, nevermind

Copyright 1998, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved. This was published under a Creative Commons license; click here for details. Contact: ilikejason [at] gmail [dot] com.