Cacophony, n. harsh discordance of sound; dissonance:

it's the sound of a coffee cup clattering

rolling on the tile of a classroom floor

the anxiety of the ACT

bolded, capitalized, yelled across

a room of numbers that tell me I'm worth

sixty four thousand for four years

and they never specify on forms

if they want

unweighted or weighted

me, if they want the prayer those five extra points gave me

hope.

 

Cacophony, n. a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds:

it's the sound of the crowd

meaningless chitchat chirping

cracking, fracturing

thin threaded relationships

between friends to lovers to enemies

again, again, again

as I keep my elbows out

and my head down

too concentrated on concentrating

to meet the eyes

of a friend four years ago.

 

Cacophony, n. In music. frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand.

it's the sound of a million churning emotions

the clickity clack clicking

of keys typed, turned into

poetry for an english class

I might win a paltry award for

that might give me another thousand

to pay for a degree for a job I don't know what yet

as I push back, push forward,

rock myself until I vomit

words, words, words

in the three languages I know,

english

spanish

music,

callouses forming once more

on my fingertips, it's pain,

the noise is plucked and it doesn't make any sense

when I play and make up words on the spot

Jabberwocky, Jabberwocky, Jabberwocky

but it's finally a relief from the noise bottled in my head

and

if you could hear your own voice only,

a stream of consciousness even you can't understand,

for hours on end,

you would learn to

make yourself sick,

anorexia of words if you will.

 

Cacophony, from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos "harsh sounding,"

it's the sound of lips forming

fuck, that was due today?