Day 31 – Participate

Every morning I wake to find
I have to participate again.
Most days that’s a blessing but
today it’s just enough that I
am not really given a choice.

Day 30 – World of Dreams

Curse that world of dreams which spins
without my input, which takes advantage
of my exhaustion and plummets me into
scenes I would rather never face.

Always they’re from some memory, long ago
buried, too minuscule to protect or reject,
blown open in horror hypotheses:
“What if this was my life?”

And always I’m forced to confront them alone,
with no knowledge that you exist, no hope
of escaping the worlds I trudged through
long before we met.

Day 29 – Unauthorized Biography

You knew I had a knife or we wouldn’t be here.

What you didn’t understand was why-
a much more interesting story,
if you’d cared to ask.

But the fascination with the weapon
only grows after the murder
and by then there’s no excuse
but what’s yours?

Day 28 – Alice

If I had the time
I’d get lost
I’d be digging holes
I’m sure I’d find much to talk about
I’m sure I’d find much to write about
But Alice finally listened to her history
And I have to stay in my lane
There is more to come than the past
can fascinate

Day 27 – Creed

I will always make excuses for children
for they bear the least of all blame
and I will always expect more of myself
because I’ve had more time to know better
The ones who sell the future and seal
their place in everlasting shame
are those who expect more from a child
than the dignity they give
And let me die before I let you
carry the world
while I still have strength left
to carry you

Day 26 – Other People’s Drama

Botched botox,
one side of the decade mushroom,
a library book I keep checking out
but never buy

Other people’s drama
draws my life right there on the map
alluring disasters so easy to return
in the mail

Day 25 – Refund

If only I could offer a refund
for every love poem I ever wrote
because I didn’t know anything and
I still don’t

I have a ring on my index finger
I have a therapy session at noon
I have an ice cream maker coming tomorrow
and I gave my fraudulent book
to you

that day
when you saw me ordering chai
I was counting the answers I wrote for myself
thank god you left that book on the shelf

I hope it’s rotting there still

Day 24 – They

They say
your conscience is a still, small voice inside
that whispers the right things to do

I asked
who is whispering these things in my head
that are scary and don’t always make sense

They said
it was the holy spirit and that it only spoke
the truth, and I needed to listen harder

They said
I needed to listen when it spoke the things
they read in their little books, but then

I said
it was whispering that some of this seemed
suspicious, didn’t always make sense and

They said
sometimes it was whispers from the devil
and I didn’t need to listen to those but

They never said anything
about mental health, just kept saying to pray
and keep reading that book

They never thought anything
was alarming about having the devil whispering
in your ear until

I said
there was no devil, there was no holy spirit
their little book was just a book and then

They said
I was lost with no more hope, that the
devil had finally got me but

I don’t hear any voices now
except my own

and it makes sense
to me

Day 23 – Knees

We watch ten weeks in six hours
and think we could never
We don’t remember we ever were
but we had our times

And now it’s hard to fathom
the goal was always just to get here
We don’t believe we ever hurt
and hurt ourselves
and prayed for this

It’s easy to laugh but
we should be
falling on our knees

Day 22 – Simultaneous Realities of Education as Illustrated by Insect Metaphors

Flies with honey
Flies with honey
Children are flies and
you get them with honey

and

Bees in the hive
Bees in the hive
Children are bees and
you teach them to work

and

Ants for the Queen
Ants for the Queen
you’ll get honey for work if you
work for the Queen

and

The Queen has a foot on her neck
there is no more honey allowed in school
everyone’s dropping like flies but I still
have to teach you to work like bees