Day 273 – The Quiet

Adjusting to the quiet in many ways,
my soul is on fire–
I cannot speak
but a concert of new life
vibrates my bones and clenches my teeth
and stands me up tall
and walks me out
and lifts me up.

Day 272 – Please

I don’t want to write if it means
I have to think
I don’t want to think if it means
I have to feel
I don’t want to feel because it means
I’d have to write
I don’t want any part of it
please

Day 271 – The Last Few Grains

The hourglass sand is ticking
in the pit of my stomach, the last
few grains are trickling, I hold
my hand over the hole in me
to make sure nothing gets out
on the carpet, I can’t let them
see my disease, I can’t let them
talk me out of it, I can’t let them
figure out I could leak out at
any minute, empty out
all I have left to hang onto,
the last few grains I’m trying
to keep for me

Day 270 – And Yet

Some things you know and yet
they take such a very long time to know–
who could judge all these half-baked poems
crumpled up? They form the heart of me
that was not ready, that tried but could not see,
I’ll be lost to the ages soon but the endless drafts
and iterations will outlive me and I hope they remember
how hard I tried

Day 269 – A Question of Men

There is no question of men
that isn’t a mirror questioning me
there is no choice except
what I’ve already failed to choose

There is no love but that
which already exists
there is no call to give any more
than love deserves to give itself

And there is no strength or bravery in me
that I didn’t learn from someone else
so there is no reason to doubt that the giving
is a question that answers itself

Day 268 – The Bus

It’s doing me good to realize
I am not the one driving the bus
but I still pump the imaginary brakes
every bump we hit

It’s doing me some good to see
my steering wheel is just a toy
but I still grip at ten and two
and try to turn it

It’s terrifying to know that
I am not the one driving the bus
but I am the one constantly trying
to take command

Day 267 – I Don’t Live

No wonder I don’t live inside my body–
my body is not a fun place to be
it is full of shakes and pains and shifting beats

Of course I live inside my head–
it’s the only place I control
it’s the only place where I can suffer as much as I want

Day 266 – Scarecrow

My tiny, one-person boat
out on the ocean, calm and smooth
takes bumps like an amateur wrestler
one wrong move can knock me out
I can’t survive in chaotic winds
I was not built for fluctuation
I’m a scarecrow, bored on a pole,
who knows he couldn’t walk anyway

Day 265 – In Another Life

In another life I would’ve been
a poor therapist –
if this life hadn’t hurt me so bad
I would’ve wanted to heal
more of those who’d been hurt
and I wouldn’t have understood
anyone’s pain.

Day 264 – Plenty Delicate Enough

Life is a group assignment
which I heartily detest–
it doesn’t remotely approach justice
that I should bear the emotional toll
for other’s choices which I cannot control.
Let me alone in my green hunting cap,
I shall never love a soul and
I shall never have to worry
about their pyloric valves
when mine is plenty delicate enough.