What Topics Do You Like to Discuss? (An Exploration in Monologue) #BlogchatterA2Z #poetry

I.
What topics do you like to discuss?
they ask, tongue tilting at a 45-degree angle,
like a semi-broken compass at dusk,
and I say: yes.
I like to discuss yes.
And no.
And the silent cliff between them
where ideas teeter in ballet slippers,
but no one claps.
Yes is a swinging door.
No is a wall with graffiti.
But the space between —
oh, the space —
that’s where I build my bed,
where I throw up canvases of almosts,
and eat soup made of metaphors
too hot to swallow.

II.
I discuss the unraveling of socks
while the world debates nuclear peace.
I murmur to torn threads,
my voice a quilt of misremembered lullabies.
Who else will speak of
the politics of loose buttonholes?
Or the metaphysics of earwax?
It’s not gross, it’s democratic—
it belongs to everyone.
I am a herald of the mundane,
a priest of peeling stickers on apples,
the ambassador of lint.
Let the suits speak of policy;
I will interrogate dust.
I will ask it
what it has seen in the corners
that light dares not reach.

III.
I like to discuss the sound of a stapler.
THWACK.
Each metallic bite a declaration
that even paper wants to hold hands.
Staplers are underrated philosophers.
They know commitment.
They fear nothing.
They snap their jaws shut on chaos
and say, "stay."
Did you ever consider
that staplers may be monogamous?
That they pledge allegiance
to office supplies the way poets
do to pain?
They live in the shadows of paperweights,
yet they hold the spine
of entire thesis dreams.

IV.
Sometimes I talk about nothing.
Not nothing as in empty,
but nothing as in
—the space between lovers' footsteps
—the air before thunder
—the pause in a jazz solo
where the silence is the loudest note.
I discuss that kind of nothing,
until it fills the room
and no one notices
they’ve been listening to absence
for hours.
Nothing is heavy.
Nothing has texture.
It wears velvet and hums softly.
I invite it to tea,
and we sip old poems
from chipped porcelain
made of yesterday’s sighs.

V.
What topics do you like to discuss?
Let’s talk about the legitimacy of dreams
as historical documents.
Did you know last night
I brokered peace between octopuses and clouds?
A treaty was signed in ink
on sheets of cumulonimbus.
This will affect shipping routes
and mood swings in poets.
I woke with tentacle marks on my heart.
I filed the dream
under "Important: Revisit by Thursday."
Dreams are time travelers
in pajamas.
They draft legislation
that dissolves the borders
between logic and longing.

VI.
I discuss letters never sent.
Postcards that never left the sock drawer.
Love notes addressed to people
we used to be.
How tragic,
to stamp silence with forever
and lick the envelope shut with regret.
I write to old versions of myself:
The boy who cried at the aquarium.
The girl I became after a poem broke me.
I sign them,
“Yours in infinite edits.”
The postman knows not to deliver
what never asked to arrive.

VII.
Let's talk about vegetables.
Not the kind that grow,
but the kind they say people become.
Vegetative states.
Why must consciousness
be binary?
Can’t one be both celery and philosopher?
I feel more sage when I’m rooted,
photosynthesizing sorrow.
My thoughts taste of chlorophyll.
I don’t speak—I sprout.
I’ve met potatoes with more insight
than pundits.
In stillness,
we ferment a revolution
of green.

VIII.
Do you know what I like to discuss?
The emotions of forgotten objects.
A comb missing three teeth.
A VHS tape with no player.
Do they yearn?
Do they remember
the soft resistance of human hands?
Do they miss being wanted
the way I miss 1997?
I found a broken Gameboy
crying beneath a box of tax returns.
It blinked once.
I wept.
Our relics are orphans,
our nostalgia their foster home.

IX.
I discuss fictional revolutions
waged entirely by fungi.
Mushrooms with manifestos.
Spore uprisings.
The kingdom of quiet rebellion
beneath our boots.
What do you mean it’s absurd?
So is capitalism.
Have you read a toadstool’s diary?
It’s full of resistance
and recipes.
They’ve been networking
long before Wi-Fi.
Mycelium is the internet
for those who don’t speak in binary
but in breath.

X.
I talk to mirrors.
Not reflections.
The actual glass.
We argue.
It says I’m distorted.
I say it’s projecting.
We never agree
but there’s comfort in the friction.
I asked once,
“What if I’m the real one
and you’re the imposter?”
It cracked slightly.
Sometimes, truth
arrives in fractures.
We tape them with mascara and smile.

XI.
Sometimes I like to discuss
the weight of unseen things.
Grief that nests in your liver.
Hope that squats in your spine.
The undigested memory stuck
somewhere between the small intestine
and the soul.
Medical science isn’t ready
for these symptoms.
But poets are.
My stomach ulcered on nostalgia.
My joints ache from inherited guilt.
I prescribe myself
a tincture of metaphors
and a poultice made of lullabies.

XII.
I enjoy discussing
how a song from 2004
can hijack your breath in 2025.
Temporal terrorism via melody.
I lost a whole afternoon
because of Avril Lavigne.
Sk8er Boi should be classified
as a controlled substance.
I collapsed in aisle six
because a ringtone
sounded like my father’s voice.
Music is a ghost
that kisses your earlobe
then vanishes.
We call it nostalgia,
but it’s really possession.

XIII.
What topics do I like to discuss?
I like talking about
how the sky changes its outfit
every twelve minutes
but nobody compliments it.
Fashion deserves applause,
even when celestial.
Even when overcast.
The sky works overtime
as a mood board.
Its palette changes
more than my thoughts.
Today it wore melancholy in matte.
Yesterday it strutted in cumulus couture.
We should clap.
At least whisper: “gorgeous.”

XIV.
Let’s discuss this:
The syntax of desire.
The grammar of longing.
Do feelings require punctuation?
Should we italicize yearning?
Insert line breaks
into infatuation?
I once loved in ampersands.
She replied with ellipses.
Parentheses are safer
than declarations.
Emotions need editing.
But the best ones,
they run on,
spilling out of their clauses
and into the void.

XV.
Do you like to talk about
conspiracy theories?
I do.
Like how socks disappear
into a wormhole shaped like shame.
Or how babies are actually
tiny time-travelers,
trying to warn us
with nonsense syllables.
We never listen.
I believe pigeons
file reports to Saturn.
And keys walk away on purpose,
tired of opening doors
to people who never say thank you.

XVI.
What topics do I like to discuss?
I like to discuss
why nobody asks trees for advice.
They’ve seen things.
They’ve survived wars,
watched lovers break up beneath their boughs,
they can teach us
about letting go
without falling apart.
I once asked an oak,
“Do you remember the kiss
from 1982 under your shade?”
It rustled,
which I took as a yes.
Wisdom is bark-deep.

XVII.
Sometimes, I discuss the moon
as if she’s a pen pal.
She responds in tides,
in flickers, in the whisper
that tugged my curtains last night.
We’re on our third decade of correspondence.
I think she might be in love with Saturn,
but I don’t ask.
It’s rude to pry.
She sends me haikus
in craters and eclipse.
Sometimes I send silence.
We understand the language
of longing without urgency.

XVIII.
Do you want to know a secret?
I discuss secrets too.
Mostly mine.
To strangers.
On park benches.
Because it’s safer to confess
to someone who has no idea
what I’m hiding from.
Once, I told a pigeon everything.
It blinked.
That was enough.
People are too eager to solve.
Pigeons just listen.
So do benches.

XIX.
I like to discuss
why people don’t discuss
what they really want to discuss.
That’s my favorite topic.
The one underneath all others.
Like how laughter can sound
like crying
in the right key.
Or how truth
hides inside jokes.
I ask questions sideways,
because directness burns.
You learn more
by watching someone squirm
than from their answer.

XX.
So what topics do I like to discuss?
All of them.
And none.
And the ones that haven’t
been invented yet.
I like to discuss discussion itself.
Turn it into origami,
fold it into a crane,
set it flying
across this page.
Let it crash into your tea.
Let it drip ink into your dreams.
Let it ask you,
softly,
"And what would you like to discuss?"

I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z

#Poetry #SpokenWord #Absurd #Writing #WhimsicalWisdom #Philosophy #Monologue #StreamOfConsciousness #DreamLogic #Nostalgia