Once
when I was nine
I wrote a personal narrative essay
about a time that never happened.
I took home a class stuffed puppy,
dragged him everywhere for the weekend,
and lost him right before his return.
I panicked.
I looked everywhere-
the stairs,
the toy basket,
under my bed.
Then someone told me to look in my pockets
(like a medium-sized stuffed dog would fit in the pants pocket
of a tiny four-year-old girl)-
and he was there.
Maybe
the moral
of this story
is that I write-
draw out loveliness-
string together fiction-
to put in front of you
something I could never be,
bring you false gifts,
draw you a liar,
the only way to
make you love me.
I like to walk in the morning before most people and the sun arise…
while the last scenes of their dreams are still dancing behind their eyes.
Walking alone among the stars I feel alive….I feel free…
It’s where I do some thinking…it’s where I wrote some poetry.
This morning, however, I thought…I’ll just walk…I’ll enjoy my quiet time…
I won’t do any thinking…I won’t fill my head with rhymes.
But it’s hard, even in the darkness, not to think of all the beauty that I see…
from the stars that dot the sky…to the shadows of the trees.
From the clouds floating overhead that lovingly caress the moon…
to the owls and crickets and mockingbirds who sing their morning tunes.
From the sound the unseen ocean makes as she blends in with the night…
to the rabbits who, as they watch me pass, are illuminated in moonlight.
Yes, I attempted to walk this morning and just enjoy my quiet time…
for no particular reason and with no particular rhyme.
But with all the sights and sound around me…all this beauty that enchants…
Though I try not think or come up with rhymes…it’s obvious…I can’t.
empathy
I am human in the way of being you.
I am you in the way of being human.
I am human in the way that a lit match is a firework and the ocean is a pond.
birds, as kites
I watch you run with me, with us, with the risks we take every day, and it keeps crashing & floating & I feel like a bird
I watch from the ground as you and us and all the birds take flight.
anger
I do not feel like you
I feel as you
and my head is too too too full
I want to break all the walls until they are crystals, they are fixed again
until you are mine again.
I want to destroy, I am some kind of fist or candle.
I do not have any shallow left in me
I am drowning in reverence of this hate.
breathing
I’m still not sure how.
love
how to start?
not caring, or caring too much.
memories you want to live again.
throwing all of me into a song.
messing up again.
over and over.
hope.
missing/lonely
ache.
a hangover of strangers.
how to die
live.
how to not die
just keep living.
life
something I am
thrust into
on
this
slide
and I wouldn’t choose it
but I have no other wants
than to be here and there and everywhere,
take it all in,
all at once.
it is burning
and freezing,
it is a squeeze to my heart.
how to almost die
fall again,
for everyone,
over and over.
rough edges
I feel more real at night,
less me and more pure alive
the dark has diluted something in my soul
I am made entirely of sparks
and if you touch me I just
might
splinter
poetry
does it ever occur to you
that the clouds are made of
the same parts as the ocean
and i can fly
or dive way down deep
quiet wondering
loss
scared we’ll get to a place
where all we have in common is
remember when
longing
that pit in my stomach when you leave
like I am missing something that isn’t there,
that I created
I am seeing fire in
not even embers
not even ashes
a pit of empty
it is letting myself love without the fear of falling
it is catching myself on a lifeline made of almosts
the collapsing of hearts
all of the above
poetry
fuck it I’m full of art
what I wrote is
not a bucket list
not something you should strive for
or be jealous of
what I wrote is
not a supernova
it is just
a rooftop where I sit and think
the flip of a switch
what I wrote is
not a black hole
it is just
a stage
I have set on fire
a day
stretching into pandemonium
and isn’t that
what all the lives are
everyone could
make a movie out of their moments
if they only
stopped to write it down
what if poetry is the way I see you
and the way you see yourself?
I usually can’t explain how
I like you because you are just different enough from me.
what if poetry is the way I stay sane
on broken bridges that threaten to take me?
I only sometimes have a death wish but
I drive on them anyway.
what if poetry is the way I walk away from everything
and end up right back where I started?
something I don’t take for granted
even though it constantly takes me in circles.
My words resent being used like this,
stormy when I need weapons.
They want to wrap around you when you’re lost.
Cut me like diamonds,
when I feel the sting
my head in my hands but
I want you to stay.
My words want to love you,
let you stay,
surround you
until you’re mine.
When words fail
and we sit here like
all we know has been swallowed by swords
I don’t need steel to steal your heart.
tangle me in shadow and silver
lead me to where you lie
if you stop stepping in my footprints
maybe we’ll get to fly
speak with me till we lose something
my best friend my tomorrows
fall with me till I find something
better than the time I’ve borrowed
give me another day to matter
mess with me like we never wanted to
if we keep each other’s fingerprints
I still want to write songs about you
I empty and fill
open and close.
I stifle the world with strong pepper.
You swallow me senseless
count the stairs, I’m still blind
and I can’t be apart from you.
They all forget my name.
I forget the sounds I’ve made
in every handshake.
I keep getting caught in their tears.
Maybe swords.
I keep writing the words,
Love is like blood.
Strong and helpless and falling,
collapsing over my fingers
to crawl out of me.
I choke on all the spoons
that turn out to be spikes.
I still don’t know how to write the words,
Love is in my blood.
I feel the ink flow through my veins,
After fearing it all had dried.
As once again, reality awakens muse,
When all hoping again, has died.
For a jolly poet, simply cannot write,
Unless it all goes tragically wrong.
So to hell with all the make believe...
And to hell with being strong.
I'd rather feel this release again,
As from me, this blood pours out.
A letting of this verbal plasm,
Pouring forth from an emotional spout.
A too-tight tourniquet of sorts,
Long staunched, a healthy flow.
But now, like before, it flows warm and red,
And eagerly fills again, a river of woe.
So muse, now cut me deeper still,
For we have poems to be created.
Since life prooved to us, yet once again,
The tempests will never, be abated.