Soft Spoken EP

by Marcus Rolando

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about

The "Soft Spoken EP" is a collection of original poems as written and performed by Marcus Lomboy. Recorded over fitting instrumentals, and loaded with emotion and sincerity, this EP focuses on topics and thoughts felt better left unsaid. This ranges from unrequited emotions, regrets to personal reflection.
The "Soft Spoken EP" is the baby step of a young voice finding its own pace and stride after being created in a vortex of rainbows and panda bears. It is both Darth Vader's life story and Luke Skywalker's love of Princess Leia.

credits

released 10 May 2011
All poems are written and performed by M. Lomboy.
All tracks are produced, edited and recorded by A. Maas.
All instrumental tracks used are property of their rightful owners and are used with no intend to profit or infringe.

tags

tags: spoken word hip hop poetry spoken word Toronto

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Track Name: Freak Show.
Come one come all!
Step right up!
Marvel at the human oddities.
Come see these freaks of nature.
It will be the greatest show on Earth!
Don’t miss out!

ARE YOU READY!?

See the 19 year old poet
With all the confidence of the offspring
Of the bearded lady and the elephant man.
I’m putting all of my mistakes on display for you.

So do you like what you see?

Looking for strokes in my scars
Like God applied pain with a paint brush
And the stitches are tattooed into my flesh
From every time I’ve tried to put myself back together.
And if feels like I’ve done it wrong this time…
My insides have become trained contortionists
Trying to juggle my secrets with my conscience.
Wishing for a samurai’s suicide
So I can spill my guts to you with honour.
But this is not a battlefield.
This is a freak show.

So you just sit there and watch me burn
In the heat of memories and honesty
Under the weight of your gaze
I’m just here for your enjoyment.

Do you like what you hear?

The ventriloquist poet on stage
Afraid of commitment so there’s no strings attached.
But don’t get too close
Or you’ll find out he’s human.

Sigfried and Roy if you ever catch me lying
And keep me caged with the lions.
Because I remind you of your primal instincts.
To feel.
To cry.
And not be scared or else people would judge you.

See, we are praised for being broken.
Raised by experience to breathe fire on stage
Never realizing that gasoline burns
And my words are carving grooves into my windpipe
Like I’m learning to swallow swords in reverse.

I grew hearts on my sleeves
Because the one in my chest always seems to get broken..
I’m conjoined to my past
And nightmares always creep into my bed of nails.
My closet is a graveyard for human skeletons
And I’m afraid that they’ll drag me in
Every time I try to change.

I bear my flaws for your entertainment.
So I can’t stop pretending
Can’t stop acting
Can’t stop dancing
Or you’ll find out that I’m not really alright.

But the show has to go on.
You paid the door charge
And you came here to see a show.
So here I am.
Track Name: Prince.
I am a prince.
Not a formerly known as turned symbol.
No paparazzi magnet in matrimony with the tabloids and headlines
No regal bearing…and not charming in the least
But I’m still a prince.

Made who I am by my blood
So it’s not a played out phrase
When I say I’d treat my wife like royalty…because she would be.
Because by logic I’m a prince if I was raised by a queen.

But I never get the chance to thank her.
My memory fails to keep track of our history the way parliament would
But it’s etched in the genetic structures she built in me
The way she contributed half
And we share the same beautiful biology
Constructed to the letter in the blueprints
She stowed away in my DNA
With every detail planned in her chromosomes
Sometimes forgetting my double helix inheritance when it gets lost in translation
And take for granted the fact I have an empire in my bloodline
That Alexander would envy.

So I’m hoping everything you are is hereditary.
Since I’d hate to be anything less
It’s impossible to be anything more
But taught to be as much since I was raised by a queen.
So I am a prince.

Not worthy of the title she gave to me
Never tried hard enough in school
Even less outside of it
While she worked 12 hours a day
Just to give me things I wanted but didn’t need.
But I learned from you.
See, a long time ago I realized that Grandma got it right
When she named you a miracle
Because you are.

A queen.
With your family as a kingdom.
Never a wanted to be monarch
But willing to migrate for your future generations like monarch butterflies.
See, I could never treat your visage like Elizabeth’s
Molding it into metal.
Unable to place your face on currency
So currently, I’m trying to put your features into poetry.

Knowing I could never succeed.
But I’m trying.
Trying to live up to what you made me.
A prince.
Track Name: Soft Spoken.
Sometimes I’m afraid of speaking.

I mumble because I’m incapacitated
With an illogical fear that my words
Would transform my shoulder blades into knives
Ready to treat my spinal column like chopping blocks.
My skin is frayed from the countless attempts
To see what’s beneath the surface
And I think my tongue is spying on me
Ready to betray my thoughts to the highest bidder
Just so they can judge me like they don’t already.
So I keep my secrets stapled to my lungs
Breathing empty reassurances and
Weightless confessions until I’m left mute.
And the fear keeps its grip firmly around my windpipe
So my voice resonates with all the force and authority
Of a silent night.
So I write.

In a society where we win bragging rights
And gift receipts for “I told you so”s,
Talk behind backs like there was
Soundproofing in our spines,
And real lies become synonymous
With what we realize
My words are well guarded
Behind walls of silence.
I’m soft spoken.
Track Name: Apologies.
The words I had carefully laced in my apology had barely left my lips
When I looked into her eyes.
She said nothing.

Her lips quivered like she was facing her darkest fears
In a nightmare she couldn’t escape…
The pain, too much to place into words
And in that moment, time stopped.
And I swear…I swear I could hear her heart
Fighting against the confines of her ribcage
Yearning for emancipation
From every blow it had ever taken

Each bruise from every leap of faith into unknown arms
Every ‘I love you’ and ‘forever and always’ sugar coating ulterior motives
Every mistake.
Mistakes she blames herself for
Thinking they were her fault.
But they never were.

Her eyes doing backstrokes in an ocean
She held it in
Saving her tears in the piggy bank under her eyes
Already filled to capacity with every regret she ever had
She saves them, trying to refill the trust fund
That experience had slowly diminished.

And it hurt more than anything she could ever say.

Her muted emotions
Interspersed through the silence of her gaze
The sound reverberated off eardrums and hollow walls
Because sometimes, silence is the loudest sound you can make.

For every word she refused to say
I died inside a thousand times
And all I could say was…”I’m sorry”
And I meant it with every fibre of my existence
Not just for everything I’ve done wrong
But a universal apology

An “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you that night”
Or “I’m sorry that somebody showed you the darkest side of men
And not the best that we have to give you.”
An “I’m sorry that my touch might remind you of his
And that he chained himself to your memories, and even the best of them can hurt”
“I’m sorry that even the most honest choose to hide behind the guise of a lie”
And “I’m sorry that my promises are fragile figurines
That I break like eye contact in staring contests because I’m afraid of getting lost in your eyes without breadcrumbs…”

But I always had the best intentions
Yet it breaks my heart that an apology is the best I can do.
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
Rage because I can do no better than to utter a few words
Words that anybody can say and not mean
I want to yell until you believe me that everything will be alright
That you are still perfect no matter what you hold against yourself
And what you’ve been through

And as I looked into her eyes
Tears ready to dive from her lashes
I realized that sometimes silence
Is the loudest sound you can make.
Track Name: Stars.
Promise me you won’t think any less of me for what I’m about to say.
For all of my transparent attempts at getting closer to you through past and recent events, but in my defense…I don’t think I had a choice in the matter.
While I’m probably nothing amidst your first, your exes, your future boyfriends, and the one man you might potentially marry…I’m not sorry. Not sorry for being one of the many bridges you crossed and burned to go from your past to your future.
Even if our time was wasted, may it be days, weeks, months, or years…I do not regret it in the least.

Because you see, I could say with every fibre of my being that no matter how brief…you were my sunshine. But way past cliche metaphors, you're closer to stars and supernovas.
The way your smile reflects prisms of light and double rainbows, even sometimes starting to look like a triple rainbow…
Now the night never gets too dark and lonely anymore...like it used to.
The warmth you emit, tingles skin on fingertips leaving palms sweaty and electricity tap dancing on nerve endings.
It reminds me... the best parts what it feels like to be human.
Staring into the depths of the brown in the stroma in your iris, even past closed eyelids, is as close to infinity as I’ll ever get…yet I don’t mind in the slightest.
From the twinkle in your eyes resembling far gone constellations, to your pale complexion reminiscent of the moon. I will fight through black holes for you who are beyond ethereal, beyond celestial…taking meteor showers in the morning and wearing the rings of Saturn as jewelry during dinner in the evening.
They say the eyes are the window to one’s soul, and in yours I see the cosmos.
Reaching for signals like orbiting satellites, orbiting your curves like axis and gravitational pulls. You pull me in closer…I’m attracted to you like polar opposites of north and south while I align planets through phrases by word of mouth.
No more wishing that airplanes were shooting stars like annoying pop musicians, because everything I ever wanted is right next to me. Everything in your heavenly body that tiptoes the fine line between where the earth and the heavens meet.

Until the day we refuse to recognize what once was, like Pluto as a planet…I’m not sorry. Not sorry for being one of the many bridges you crossed and burned to go from your past to your future. Even if our time was wasted, may it be days, weeks, months, or years…I do not regret it in the least. Because in my mind, what we have will stretch til infinity…and beyond.
Track Name: Useless.
I just feel so useless sometimes…
So I just stand there.
Like a contestant on some game show
And the questions consisted of words of comfort
Or life skills like doing laundry, or hammering a nail…
Or…being able to hold a conversation with a girl.

So I hang my head in shame
Looking at the well-worn toe boxes of my sneakers
Like the creases were wrinkles
Earned through years of experiences
And trials and tribulations
That make my life resemble history channel re-runs.

So I try to make myself seem worthwhile
I pretend that my hands are these…
Dreamcatchers
Picking up dreams like claw machines
To deposit them in your lap
Or giving you permission
To window shop into my whirlwind insides
With your x-ray vision.

Then I start imagining that my skin
Is the only thing holding me together.
And the fabric of my existence
Is just thread off some cheap knockoff
You can buy at your local flea market.
And it’s bursting at the seams
Unable to hold in all the…
Uselessness!
Like my soul just wants to burst out
At the first possible opportunity.

And it’s burdened by my collection of missed chances
Like old wishes at a Sick Kids hospital.
So my shoulders are fossils
Being turned into fuel from the peer pressure
Until my spine curves like question marks
Under the weight of your suggestions.

And my blood is molten lava
Flowing through tectonic ridge veins
Waiting for open mawed volcanoes to escape from
Alongside the growl of earthquakes
Like the stomach of a starved Cerberus.

So I hold onto these lines
I turned into my autobiography
Like the last gasp of oxygen
You manage to grab before you drown.

But even then…
I just feel so useless sometimes.
Track Name: For You.
“So tell me a story.”
That’s what you always said to me.
And every time I would wish I could tell you about a girl.
The first time I met her…it was awkward. And quiet.
We were both in the back seat and I couldn’t think of anything to say other than…”Hi.”
Because I could hardly speak like an SWV song.
But I promise I’ll work on it.
Maybe I’d say something cool like:

“AYO SHAWTY! You got cakes ma!
And today, I feel like being a pastry chef.
My hands could be the pin rolling up your back
Until your spine arches over sheets of red velvet
And it gets hot in here…No oven.”

But I’d never actually say that…
But with the nonsense I spoke she would fall asleep
To my voice like it was her favourite lullaby.

Or maybe I’d create a work of fiction where I could
Transform into what made you happy.
Sparkles and a unicorn.
And give you a bouquet of carrots.
I’d even wear gloves to do it
Because you don’t like people touching your food.
So I ask how I’d be able to cook you that Valentine’s day dinner.

Silence…
“So tell me something.”
That’s what you always said to me.

So let me tell you now..
A hippo can run faster than a man can.
Polar bears are left handed.
You’re not allowed to plow a cotton field with an elephant in North Carolina.
It takes up to four hours to hard boil an ostrich egg.

Or how I wish I could unlock my ribcage
To free the secrets I’ve trapped inside.
Just to watch them fly away
Along with the butterflies you gave me.
Hatched from cocoons of hi’s and hello’s
So the chrysalis they created could keep you safe.
Birthed from caterpillars that crawled like my skin did
When I realized we stopped talking.
I remember you telling me I didn’t fight for you.

And sometimes I regret how much I remember.
Or how I could never read you like the books you love so much
Or that I could never find what to say to you…
Like my words were your missing Archie comics.
Or how I hope that your grandmother pulled though.
And she’s doing fine chilling at home.
Then I realize that that was the last real conversation we had.
If you could call it that.

You always said you hated liars.
But I’m sorry for lying when I said
“I can’t sleep without talking to you.”
Truth is…talking to you kept me up for hours after.
Just so I could replay your voice in my head
Even after you’d fallen asleep already.
Straining my ears,
Hoping I could catch a stray whisper
Of your dreams past the static silence of a satellite signal.

And sometimes I still catch myself waiting for it.
But I know that those phone lines could never weave a safety net
Strong enough to break my fall
And my eardrums have retired
Because on days like this
I almost forget what your voice sounded like to begin with.

And sometimes…I still get those butterflies.
You can have them.
Along with this poem.
I remember asking you if you had a favourite.
So this is for you.
This is the one I haven’t written yet.