Concrete.
Someone put it there
To be useful
And I still think we should attempt to feel the concrete
And see it too.
Feeling and seeing is useful.
Notice it, I guess. Like you’d notice a tree,
Except more sad.
Less real.
But heavier.
I’ve heard that word a lot—concrete.
Art class.
English seminar.
Therapy.
People say it to mean something you can touch.
It’s tangible.
Concrete.
It’s cemented, stuck, filled with pebbles and gluey gray and stuck.
It has to be poured out before it can harden.
A broken record, a conversation, a tar pit, a suburb.
Stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck. Suck.
As things we thought drip through disappointed fingers, we long for something concrete.
We want black. We want white.
But concrete is gray, actually.
It sits there, heavy.
Pot holed.
The cold, hard facts.
Cold.
Hard.
It’s strange how we make things
And we ask for them
And we get them
And we hate them
Cold. Hard.
Molded.
Made.
Made in the way that progress is made.
We make it, but instead of more,
There’s less.
Lauren (Boersma) Harris (’13) is a spontaneous, idealistic, independent, fierce, over-thinking, damaged, adventurous, ordinary megalomaniac with a healthy sense of self-worth and a high word count. She has been a teacher both indoors and outdoors; she loves improvised comedy, backpacking, and writing, even when it’s required.
