#timothy waldron

ironbound: irony in the flesh

“ironbound – a blog is a love letter to the place where I grew up, and the account of my heartbreak at moving beyond it. [It] was written long before I left the Ironbound, and in hindsight I wonder if, even back then, I was trying to justify to myself the decision I had already made.  [This is part of] a larger experimental work comprised of 72 scenes that are formatted to resemble entries in a blog. The full work is addressed to a personified version of the neighborhood where I grew up.”

… 14

you came to see me yesterday. snuck up on me asking, what are you reading? i looked up from the paperback and found you between me and the sun.

you sat down and slapped my thigh like an old friend. said, i’m tired of this city.

still looking at you i responded, “what can she be, being what she is?”

is that one of yours, you asked.

william butler, i started,  but you didn’t let me finish. started going off about all the corruption, the violence, the kids in a rush to grow up.

she doesn’t make sense to me anymore, you added. she isn’t the same. she’s not home anymore. and all i could think was how ironic this was. you, next to me, telling me how she isn’t the same anymore and yet you in love.

you continued to speak but i was lost in the thoughts your words arose in me. at times i have read of stories that come after other stories, only those earlier stories weren’t told because there wasn’t that much to say. so i understand that perhaps i stretch you too thin. after all, i witnessed as you yourself did it just yesterday, sitting next to me in the afternoon sun going on and on about her.

but bearing all of you, isn’t that how i loved you best? isn’t that how we all love best, taking the very small and making it into a world, a dream, the universe?