“The Weight” is by my friend Ryan Stone who lives in Melbourne, Australia. More of his fine poetry can be found at Days of Stone.
One drunken night, he lay on the coach road
and she lay beside him. He pictured a truck
descending – wobbling around corners,
gaining momentum. They spoke about crushes,
first kisses. He told her of an older woman
who’d stolen a thing he couldn’t replace.
He tried to describe the weight of lost things.
She listened until he stopped,
until I stopped
hiding behind he. I felt small,
watching the cosmos churn
while I lay on the coach road
one summer night, speaking
of big things
and nothing.
Ryan Stone
First published in Algebra of Owls
Photo: “Fairie Lights on the Dark Road”
by Faustus Faunus
PS New prompts are up on the Prompts page.
Sarah Russell Poetry 
A fine poem.
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Good poem… but what happened to your Sunday prompts for the week? Missed them! ☘️ Kati
Sent from my iPhone
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At the end of the poem, after the “credits” see the PS with a link to the Prompts page. I always post them there. I won’t ever post them as a post, just as a PS to the poem or story I put up on Sunday. Thanks for asking, Kati!
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Thank you, Sarah. I’m flattered to appear on your beautiful blog 🙂
Thank you both as well, Steve and Kati. I appreciate your comments.
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You’re welcome, Ryan. And I have to give credit where it’s due. Ryan helped me set up my beautiful blog, so a lot of the credit for its existence goes to him. A true friend of infinite patience, despite all my neophyte questions. Thank you, thank you!
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Always a pleasure 🙂
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hi, sarah. so nice to meet you. i’ve been following your friend ryan, and always enjoy his work –
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Thanks for stopping by. I’ve been following you for some time, Beth, and just introduced a class to your posts as a great example of someone who blogs every day. I look forward to your posts every morning. You find magic in life, and your posts always make me smile.
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wow, thank you so much, sarah. this is such a compliment )
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There is so much feeling and meaning behind this one Ryan. It has such an intensity to it. I can relate to those times or I have been in the past where you are drunk and the words just flow out easier, your most hidden secrets. I love how how you describe it as wobbly truck and it’s momentum are like the secrets he tells her, until it’s really “I” the speaker, and not just someone the speaker is speaking about so dittached. Admitting it, it becomes real and at the end there is a good emptiness of him saying nothing having this weight lifted and her saying nothing because there are no words and she knows the speaker is relieved to be free of this weight. Funny though how after even admitting it, he feels small, you contrast him with the cosmos. He felt insignifigant when these older women took things from him he couldn’t replace. It’s a kind of abuse but because he’s a guy, the world wouldn’t see it that way. But the speaker has her and I think that means a lot she is there despite his admission, despite his quiet after. There is comfort in companiable silence.
As you can tell I really loved this one. One of your best and that’s very hard to choose!
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You captured it the meaning well. That’s why I love this poem of Ryan’s too. Nice insight into the truck metaphor.
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Thanks Sarah. It’s a gorgeous poem 🙂
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This is my first comment on any site, and for reasons unknown, I chose your poem “The Weight”, and enjoyed your words.
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Thanks so much! But those aren’t my words. They belong to my awesome friend Ryan Stone. I’ll let him know what you said. Check out his blog. You’ll be impressed. https://daysofstone.wordpress.com
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