the puppy
croodling up next to her brand new toy —
a highland cow
with five squeakers
and a witch hat
and a vibe of playing
i’ve never seen her do
with any
other
toy
is it love?
is it play-acting her hunting instincts?
do we care that much?
no —
we just like to see her
happy
i got
a sudden sad
yesterday
appearing out of
[seemingly]
nowhere, bubbling up to my eyes
hot with unexpected tears
all of a sudden
filling
overflowing
dripping down my
sad sad face
as i searched for something
to take the pain even slightly
away
and my kip was there to hold me
[the only thing that ever truly helps]
and jiggle/wiggle me around
to make me laugh some of the tears away
and the puppy was there to nuzzle into my face
and dry up the dripped tears with her fur
and the cat was there
to confuse my sadness away
when she tried to lick the inside of my
recently emptied coffee mug
but later
kip was on the couch
slowly melting to prone
as the weight of the news
read from the phone
crushed them down
gravity invading their bones
until they couldn’t move anymore
and i had used up all my personal stock of
any sort of ‘light at the end of the
fascist
tunnel’ feeling to wipe my eyes
and continue the laundry that needed
to be done,
so i couldn’t be there for my kip
as they had just been there for me
experiencing the same sadness
i had just
felt
this is a horrible timeline
why can’t people
[in power]
just
be
kind?
half asleep
half awake
half in love with
half the people
here on half this earth
[though i love the whole planet
like i can’t get away from
my own desires, crying when i see
a single beam of sun
encroach over the horizon
of a view i’ve never seen in real life/
or simply the leaves of trees
i always see
but rarely really
look at
on my daily commute
using human infrastructure
and human pathways
to get to human-created endeavors
and human-built buildings
but right here
are magics
we could never
ever
ever begin to
develop on our own
without the pathways led to us
for us
from the
earth]
every
single thing
on this planet
is so fucking special
i cannot
cannot
get over it
[this could include
humans
and humanity…
does it?]
feeling insane
for having sane responses
to an absolutely
batshit
crazy ass
timeline
i honestly
don’t understand
me
turn off the brain
turn on the writing
turn on the morning
the focus and the words
that mean nothing
that mean everything
if i don’t think too hard
if i don’t think hard enough
if i simply stop thinking
maybe these poems
may make sense
eventually]
once
a very very very long time ago
my parents
[who are, in their own right, a couple of kooky characters]
offhandedly mentioned to me
that i was such a weird being,
once i found someone who liked me
for me
i’d better hold onto them
and though i took it as a point of pride then
[and still kind of do now]
i’d be lying if i said it didn’t impact
my own personal perception of self
and value
et cetera
et cetera
et cetera
but i think
that’s why i’m drawn
and secured
here in aerial circus
this feels like the hobby
that saw me in all my wild and strange glory
and said “that one, we like them
we’d better hold onto them”
and so i clutch back on
even tighter
to circus
when one smacks a mosquito
good and full against
an arm or a leg or a wall or a table
there often remains
a dusty shadow of the mosquito
as if to say
“here is the evidence that you’ve taken a life,
now deal with it.”
i’ve ignored the outside
for too long
for not long enough
it’s still impacting me
it’s still making its way inside
what’s wrong with living a life
pretending
all of humanity
is actually
kind?
[can “fake it till you make it”
apply to expectations
of others?]
am i,
for the first time in my
entire
entire
life,
looking forward to the
cooler weather
?
kipventures 