If you had known you were gonna
be somebody’s blueprint, that they
would expect the world to behave
like you long after you left for good,
would you have done any different?
If you had known you were gonna
leave for good, be long gone before
you ever did anything different,
would you have left me a blueprint
for how to expect the world to behave?
I’ve heard the message so many times-
speak with kindness-
and I wish I could,
but how can you speak a language
you weren’t taught,
you never heard,
you were instructed to avoid,
you were told would make you weak?
It doesn’t help that one unkind remark
in passing, you didn’t mean to make,
erases all those times you really tried.
It’s been so long since I’ve been properly tired,
I’ve thrown out my back doing things I assumed I could do-
was it only this year that I went fully soft
or do I see now all the harsh, brutal ways
life forced me to be too hard?
Try to remember
that nothing strange can last;
all things become family in time
and you and I,
we have so much of it.
Isn’t it so human of us,
when time brings what we longed for,
that we are scared to have it
since we’ve already moved on
hopelessly without it
Each day is like an empty box-
can’t visualize what will be inside
I’m told it is a gift
but why’s it MY unending job to fill it up
There is a little bird which has flown
full velocity through a barbed wire fence
and for months I’ve watched his
hanging broken body slowly disappear
What does it say about him that he
could not stop flying when he saw his end
and what does it say about me that I
cannot stop thinking that he’s like me
except that I’m not dead
The human obsession with butterflies
is constantly letting me down
where logic has never failed me
I feel their absence as a sin
but I am such a good girl
I’m sorry to have to cancel,
I wouldn’t dream of inconvenience
for no reason but
I can’t explain the perfect storm
inside my heart
and I am past the point
of owing anything more
to anyone
We get so used to talking about
shooting for a hundred,
high-performance energy
high scores and high fives
So quickly I forget the days
when I’d die to get
back to zero
The 365 Poetry Project 