Day 212 – Prison

It’s a cell that nobody chose,
it’s a training pen for fools,
and we’re all fools in our misery
in our struggling to get out.
But it might be something to do,
something to hang a meaning on;
it’s a prison worth exploring
in the meantime.

Day 211 – I Hope

I won’t always be doing this
I know
but I’ll always be taking the time
to think like this
I can’t stop
I hope

Day 210 – Easy to See

How obvious now, and easy to see
that all is moving on but never leaves–
why don’t they scream, I thought
of those who are constantly left behind
but it’s the slowing down that makes
one grateful that there is no more
race to run and when it becomes
unrecognizable there’s such little
left to fear

Day 209 – My Yes

everything changed that night
when i rolled over,
when i just let you in
my heart was broken
you didn’t notice, or
maybe, i think, you did
i didn’t say no but you knew
what my yes was like
and i wasn’t even there
i always thought i gave you
a gift i no longer cared about
turns out when i didn’t give you my no
you stole my yes instead

Day 208 – Scarlett of Tara

Stubborn and jealous
like Scarlett of Tara
I keep my universe

I see its flaws
I know them well
I let them run in verse

I save them for
tomorrow, just like
Scarlett did with hers

But I will not play the comparison game
it could always be better
it could always be worse

I have my Tara
I am here for the best
and I’ll be here through the worst

Day 207 – Dead at a Party

Shoot and memoir me
dead at a party
if you ever tell my friends
about my poetry.
Write the memoir
on a post-it note–
it’s bound to be better
than what I wrote.

Day 206 – Targets

Is it hard to be oblivious? No,
only to act like I am–
I see so much
and I keep so much to myself.
I was a child of brutal truth,
I was a watcher in the water,
I could drown a man with his own secrets
I could stop a heart with its own blood
and a hunter never loses those skills.
Is it hard to quit the killing business? No,
only to act like I cannot see
so many targets but
I point my arrows down.

Day 205 – Sabotage

You love your friends but sometimes
they don’t have it right
you don’t know why you ever said
they know you the best
you’ve been hiding the part of you
that loves bad decisions
on a Friday night
they try to give you good advice
but they’ve no idea
that sabotage is the only friend
you’d ever trust

Day 204 – Simmer

Despite what the movies say
there is no lightning here,
halfway through a risotto recipe
and softly humming in the kitchen
while you flip through comics
waiting for dinner.
Why should there be lightning
in quiet times,
when there never was peace
through all our storms?
I will take what we have made
and watch it simmer.

Day 203 – Never Settle

So many of us are warned to never settle
and so many of us never, ever will
and so many of us will carry on searching until
we find something worth keeping
which has passed.