Author: HJ

January 6, 2025

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the problem with my desire to write
both poetry and prose is that
my poems feel more like journal entries
and my stories read more like poems
and when i try to make sure one feels like itself
[or even if i force into line the opposite kind
of writing that most folks find stable and ‘right’]
it all feels forced and off and awkward in the daylight

so, i suppose, i should just always write without expectation or label or genre
or even a plan for any words that come to mind?

i suppose, i should just

write?

January 5, 2025

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“meanwhile
back on the farm…”

why do singular lessons stand out to me
when whole years disappear
in my sieve of a memory?

i can barely remember the good times
and only moments of the bad
and probably just what i made monologues of memories
is what still comes back to me
even after i’ve long since let go of that story in my repertoire

[what would it be like to have the memory
i was born with, instead of the memory
i was traumatized to have?]

January 4, 2025

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i’m ecstatic
i’m scared
i’m electrified
i’m anxious
i’m invigorated
i’m apprehensive
i’m defensive
i’m meditative
i’m happy?
[maybe?]
i’m existential
i’m whatever
i’m apoplectic
i’m in shock
i’m winding down
i’m revving up
i’m lost
i’m found
i’m starting now
i’ve gone through so much
i want
i want
i need
i yearn
i spin yarn after yarn after yarn
but i never seem to learn
that it’s all part of the human condition —
there isn’t one affliction or emotion
better or worse than the others
when you look at one whole life lived
[and you’re not even near the end
as far as makes sense — why are you always
wrapping up your life in your head
to make the ending
an end
rather than a beginning
of a new era]

[you do you,
but also,
there’s more left of you
than you seem to act like
you
have
left]

January 2, 2025

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Computer has officially
exited her shark era;
turning a solid three-years-old,
she is no longer a puppy who will bite
everything she can get her teefies on.
so we celebrated by having a long walk
in her shark halloween costume,
playing in the park
with her best dog friend,
and getting an ice cream
and a new shark toy
once home again.
and she celebrated the way she does
every other day —
by being the happiest,
most tail-waggedy,
puppiest puppy
we’ve ever seen.

[even if the shark era has ended, i believe
the puppy era will continue on
forever]

December 31, 2024

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nothing like reading
other people’s poems
to make me feel like
a fraud

a fake poet made out of
three tiny actors
in a trenchcoat

a fake poet made of
a whole slew of fake mustaches
attached to fake noses
and prescriptionless plastic glasses

a fake poet made of
a whole buncha prose
lined up
in shorter
stanzas

a fake poet made out of
experiences
pondered

[but maybe
that’s all a
poet needs to be]

December 30, 2024

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the poetry is stilted
today

usually, if i get distracted
i catch myself staring off into space
for minutes
before i look back at my
half-finished poem

and then i take a moment to figure out
if i can reasonably get back into it
or not

but there is a moment
between realizing i’ve lost my concentration
and trying to get it back
that i know so well

and i keep having that moment
that feeling
without the minutes of staring off into nothingness

like my brain has decided it cannot concentrate
on even one poem this morning
and instead i must shatter my attention
into a million tiny bits
and hopefully i can repair them
into something resembling
a poem