I feel like that washed out painting
you keep thinking about putting out on the curb
Or a pair of pants you used to love
that are miserably dated
An uncomfortably tight shirt
shoes a size too small
I can’t look at myself in the mirror
and it feels like I have vacated the building
How the hell do you find something
you never knew
you could lose?
spilled ink
warmth
the light filtering in through the window is bright and warm
it washes over my skin and seeps inside
making my eyes droopy and my muscles heavy
I lean against the glass
and close my eyes
and bask in the heat
but no matter how much I drink in
the sun goes down
and my bones are still cold
and my heart
beats a little slower
every day
eat it
when you get to the bottom of a big, tricky hill
and you have no idea
how the fuck you’re getting over it
take a deep breath
look it in the eye
and say, “eat my entire ass!”
then start climbing
because that’s the only way to get to the other side
reach
reach out like you always have
stretch and wiggle your fingers as you search
feel the muscles in your arm become taut as you struggle
pushing with your shoulder, you try harder
and your muscles start to scream as you force them
to keep reaching, stretching further
to continue going forward, until
even your fingertips
vibrate with the strain
you reach out like you always have
but now, what you search for isn’t there
and no matter how much effort you expend
and no matter how many times you try
there is nothing
and you remain
empty
a stupid little poem
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
in the wake of Jack Frost
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 drip, drip, drip of dirty icicles
a fucking poem
f u c k
ready
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
poison
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
the things that we carry
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.
