the first
of any month
scares the crap out of me

i’m so much more able to ignore
the steady, streaming, passage of time
if the dates just keep flowing.

but the reset,
the sudden jump back to single digits,
the shock to my system as i readjust…

write new dates,
set new goals,
pay new bills,

(does it never end?)

~~~

you’d think
for someone who has new years in their top favorite holidays
new beginnings wouldn’t hurt so damn badly

~~~

poetry about something real
(kind of like prose)
flows out of me smoothly,
effortlessly,
the words coming even without me pondering them
the appearance on the document
pristine
and as i go
i think more and more
and harder and harder
and second guess
and try to have a nice ending
(are poems made for tidy endings?)
and i fizzle,
or overanalyze,
and what started as a journey
ends in near virtual reality

can my poems ever truly reflect
what’s happening
in my brain?