sometimes I think that poetry has to be big
that it needs to be existential or ground breaking
that it should be about one of the Big L’s:
life, liberty, love, loss
and that my dumb little poems aren’t poetry at all
but then I remember that in the end, everything’s fucking made up
from words to history to modern society
so I wrinkle my nose and write another stupid little poem
just because it makes me happy
it’s a glittering, slushy mess out there
white winter sunlight melts snow mounds into endless puddles
and snowmen into shapeless piles
it glimmers across snow packed by hundreds of feet
and sparkles through ice covered branches
the crowds shuffle silently
and the birds are all asleep
even the frigid winds have stopped whistling
but the quiet of this chilly morning
is broken
by the dripping of dirty icicles
f u c k
there’s this itch
I feel it in my fingers and my toes,
reverberating with every heartbeat
the urge to get up and go, to drive without destination,
to wander crumbling sidewalks until you’re so turned around you don’t know which way is up,
to visit friends and places we miss so deeply we can feel the ache in our bones;
this insatiable itch isn’t just in my body anymore,
it’s in the air, now, too
infiltrating our waking thoughts and sleeping dreams
until it is vibrating within us-
For now, we can do nothing but sit around
trying to convince our feet to stay still a little longer
as we wait
for the world to change
every time I sit down to write
the words come out angry and sad
like all the poison in my heart and my head
is leaking out of my fingertips
staining everything it touches
and I feel like nothing will be clean again
I’ve been lugging around a ton of rocks.
The boulders settle solidly in my stomach and my heart,
the smaller stones weigh down my cheeks
making it impossible to smile,
and pebbles grind together under my eyes,
blocking tears that are desperate to fall;
All I can think to do
is tear myself apart
digging with cracked fingernails
through muscle and organs and sinew
until the last offensive chip of stone
lies in a bloody puddle on the floor
and I am wholly bared, naked and free.
tighten your purse strings again and again
pull those velvet cords until they bruise the necks of those beneath you
choking the life out of your unwanted poor
and then find yourself standing atop a mountain of blood money
with no one left to pour your seven dollar iced coffee.
we are all so tired
the collective exhaustion of the world
peeks through my windows every single day
wheedling its way into my body
and settling itself in my eyes and mind
we are all so tired
it’s impossible to shake, this indominable fatigue,
because we know there is a better way
we are sure it is possible to live life
without so many unnecessary struggles
we are all so tired
and even though I have faith-
in people, in the world, in the universe,
in my absolute certainty that, one day, things will be better-
there are many days I want to lay myself down
and let the morning glories in the yard overtake me,
so that my body becomes one with the earth
and my mind can finally rest.
sometimes you think you know something
anything
a little
a lot
everything
more than you did yesterday
in the end,
even if you did nothing but learn,
you know very little,
almost nothing at all
and that
is just fine.
it has been easy to be lost, lately
to slip in and out of days in a haze
running on autopilot
breathing, speaking, eating, being,
while thinking and feeling nothing at all
but now, for the first time in years,
I see the sunlight
and want to bask in it.
