trying not to write poetry
for the blog
and only for me
makes my writing
come to life
in a way
i want to
immediately
show off
(perhaps
that’s the key
to every success)
Month: May 2022
May 20, 2022
i wonder if poets of yore
ever practiced writing
with mundane daily tasks.
i know they wrote of the very human
feeling of falling in love,
but were there ever any poems of
getting a bit of poppyseed stuck in their teeth,
or that feeling of falling right when you’re about to
lose consciousness to go to asleep?
there were poems with storms as metaphors,
analogies,
but were there ever poems where storms were simply storms
and they enjoyed in the moment,
and wrote in the after
of feeling the thunder
shake
and quake
the whole house?
i feel as though my poetry hits a spot
that hasn’t necessarily been hit
that hard
yet;
the mundanity of human existence.
and i can’t be the first person
to put prose emotions into poetry,
but i do wonder if the greats
of late
or long
ago
ever did what i’m doing
it just wasn’t as accepted
or expected
then.
May 19, 2022
how come
the rain
sometimes
lulls me into a deep, deep sleep
and sometimes
keeps me up for hours on end?
i would just like a little consistency
May 18, 2022
staring at your phone
won’t make your boredom alleviate,
but i do it anyway.
procrastinating your projects
won’t make them arrive any slower,
but guess what i do.
stress dreaming about choreography,
about packing and school long since freed,
or any sort of event approaching at gathering speed,
doesn’t seem to help in the least,
but that’s what my subconscious thinks will help me.
~~~
i can sometimes feel the stress
in my forehead
when i’m contemplating life,
or doom-scrolling through each app
that brings me no joy, only sorrow,
and when i feel
my muscles tightened,
and my eyebrows furrowed,
and my body edging towards taking on
on a tenseness i haven’t felt since college,
i try to relax that part of my face
where the stress enters.
and sometimes it does help
(and sometimes it does not)
~~~
i make lists,
but sometimes i wonder if
i’d be a more mellow human
were i to simply
not.
May 17, 2022
one thing i had forgotten
until i started staring at pictures
from the first few months with Louka
was a word i experienced for the first time
when helping guide her out of her scared dog shell:
Rewarding.
i remember telling folks:
“i never knew what this word meant,
until i spent six months coaxing the first tail wag
out of her”
“i don’t use this term lightly,
but rescuing
and helping a dog grow..
there’s no other word for it.”
“i always thought this was a dumb concept,
but i understand now
when i look at her
loving eyes”
the heart-full feeling
that i was feeling
when saying
“it’s so rewarding”
catches in my throat
and stutters with tears,
both grateful and grieving,
now that she’s gone…
helping Louka was rewarding,
but Louka herself
was such an amazing reward;
i know i’ll never forget that.
May 16, 2022
here’s the thing:
i’ve been stuck for weeks,
more than a month,
and i cannot tell
if it’s depression rearing its ugly head,
or exhaustion with the state of things in the world,
or a normal human reaction to the sadnesses that have befallen
me/us
as of late
i can’t tell if my disinterest
in my chosen profession
is an actual drifting away,
or a lack of momentum needed
for this particular drive,
or that damn depression once more
and, like i used to beg and plea
for the universe to send me
some sort of sign that
the choices i was making
were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for my life,
i wish to all goodness that
i could simply know
which it was
(but here’s the other thing:
i bet it’s a bit
of everything,
and that nothing
is as black and white as i see it,
and there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in my life,
because my choices are mine
and my own to deal with,
so every decision splits a universe apart from mine
but is there one
where i’m
happy?
all/
or at least most/
of the time???)
May 15, 2022
how are we
already
halfway through May?
(i blinked and April was gone)
but nothing will ever compare
to 2020
and the collective pressing of time
lasting forever;
that March that took
approximately eight years
to pass
and past that
i honestly don’t remember
anything
until June
(it was all March, you see)
i joke that
“time is a mortal construction”
because of a show i was in
(i was going to say once,
but technically it was twice)
and 2020 really showed us
how much of our society
really goes in to
how we perceive
the passage
of time
(and the abolishing of dst this year
did nothing to help the case
of time being anything near
concrete)
(i read once
that the only true marker
that we have
for time passing
is entropy,
all the rest of it
is simply our
perceptions,
so…)
~~~
why
do i
constantly fall into the trap
of thinking that
i don’t deserve
a “big
ol’
breakthrough”™
in my depression
if i’m not at
rock
bot-
tom
?
i’ve looked back at times
in my life
in my time
with this struggle
that seem pretty near,
but i recall clear
as day and night
are far apart
that those particular times
felt like i could always go
farther
down
depression
looks different
for different
people
so why can’t i get it through
my tick-ass skull
that rock bottom
would look different
for me
than other people?
i am not in a place
of rock bottom now,
that i can guarantee
to you and to me,
but i do feel plateaued
in a way i’ve felt
for years and years and—
–i also shouldn’t fall into the trap
of thinking that a plateau
deserves breakthroughs
any less
than a drop past the
“point of no return”™
so why
do i
find excuses
in every place
i find myself?
~~~
the puppy
wants so badly
to be friends with the cat
she sits
as calmly as her little puppy muscles can muster
and waits
for a sign of friendship
the cat, on the other hand,
simply hisses
and growls
and hides
and sighs
as the dog takes that all as signs
that the cat is conversing
and she excitedly talks back
in whining yips
and barking excites
‘come play with me!’
she seems to say
‘let’s be friends! please!? pleeeeeease!?!?!’
but the cat
is already
halfway
up the stairs
to hide just out of plain sight
or tuck herself deep under the bed
and the dog still whines
and climbs on the couch
to wait for her to show her face
in another hour or two
and the puppy whines start up again
and the hisses too,
and i hope one day
they do
actually
become friends
but today that seems…
damn near impossible
May 14, 2022
May
is going by
in the blink of an eye
~~~
i wish
sometimes
that my brain would just
chill out
for a moment
(not calm down completely;
i’ve learned my lesson there)
no, just,
give me a moment
a minute
an hour
a day
where i can be awake
but not overwhelmed with all the
‘what if’s
and ‘what could be’s,
the worries
that constantly plague me,
the overthinking
that suffers me
to ponder out
eight million possible bad outcomes
to a leap of faith
(some even stemming from
an outcome starting out
on the positive side)
does anyone else
see
both the big picture
and all the minute details
and instead of finding solace
in the breaking down of tasks
into smaller, manageable steps,
you just get overwhelmed
with the amount of tasks
that goes into everything?
or is that just me?
~~~
a rehearsal
a conversation
both later
both to look forward to
but first,
bagels
(or perhaps homemade Indian food
for breakfast)
(we’re adults, we make our own decisions in this house)
May 13, 2022
poets
are supposed to be
sentimental
romantical
(or so society says)
their best works coming
from falling
head over heels over head
over and over and over again
with people/with person/with newfound loving
but i count myself a poet
(as strange as it still feels
internally;
but
you can’t do something
every day
for over a year
and not get to take that label)
and i suppose i feel
sentimental
romantical
but without the drama
without the dire feelings
without the falling/
not knowing/
which way is up/
will there be ground when i fall/
will it cushion or strike/
a final blow/
so/
i feel like my poems aren’t the romantical kind
most people expect
but i’ve had nearly ten years with you,
six of those legally wed
(straight out of a time i thought that’d never be a thing)
(planning a wedding when you don’t know which state
will abate
the legality of your love
is an…interesting experience, to say the least)
and we skipped most societal standards,
no first/second/third date rules,
just us, sharing our personal traumas
amid late night kisses
and early morning apple juice;
a first “date” lasting damn near 24 hours
(and only a previous commitment kept it
from just extending
ad inifinitum
as many sapphic first dates go)
a one night stand
turned to talking
and magnetic-felt pulling
until we collapsed our expectations,
shed our ‘no [new] relationship rules’
and went from officially dating
to quietly engaged
in four months
flat
and each month after
i’ve learned from you
and grown with you,
and we’ve had great times
and incredibly hard times,
quiet times
and a few loud times,
but most of the time
it’s simply
comfortable-being-with-you times.
i love our co-[in]dependence
that we’ve come into on our own terms.
and that year [+] where we could only see each other
was such a welcome gift.
and even though nothing is ever promised,
i can see my future more clearly
with you
than i’ve ever seen it before,
and i know
when we’re ghosts
we’ll finally be able to cuddle the way we want
bypassing physical boundaries
and feeling that closeness we yearn for
in every tight tight hug…
we were wed
6 years ago on this day
so i suppose that’s why
today
i’m feeling
sentimental
[and a bit romantical]
but also
sentimentality sneaks up on me
most days
that i get to see you
across the table from me
working on your programming
while i write stanzas of free-form poetry,
or when we’re apart
and i feel the heartbeat vibration
of my phone telling me it’s you texting me
little words of love
or collections of memes sent as a love language all its own
or getting ready for bedtime
in this house we’ve made a home
with our adorable little family
and the comfort of us
just being
[together]
i’m sentimental for you
in a way i never thought i’d be
and i must admit
i’m grateful for it,
my Kip.
May 12, 2022
does anyone else
treat this life like a dress rehearsal,
like a rough draft,
like some sort of practice run
and keep, in their minds,
a running track of all their regrets
so that when it comes time
to actually perform/publish/play
‘for real’
they can do
life
‘right’
?
(or is that just my trauma response?)
kipventures 