ominous new year’s eve thunderstorm
ringing in the ominousness that is
twenty-twenty-five
December 31, 2024
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
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
December 29, 2024
the balance between
witnessing
and
desensitizing
is a much harder one
than i originally
expected
December 28, 2024
Kip’s new obsession —
music maker
digital audio mixer
fun melodic playtoy
i don’t know what to call it
but i do know
Kip loves it
and that
is all that matters
[and, hopefully, they let me play with it soon too]
December 27, 2024
sweaters and sweatshirts
we forget about for
nearly a solid year
and then
once the actual day of christmas
is over
we find all our festive apparel
so we don it
in this liminal time
between christmas hype
and new year’s hangover
and try to continue into january
but it always feels
odd
and forced
and then, it’ll get lost in the backs of
closets
and cupboards
and dressers
once again
[how are we so predictable?]
December 26, 2024
for a second
for a moment
for the briefest of instances
the highest tones were all i could hear
from the jackhammer working
a few blocks away
and i thought
for that tiny amount of time
that someone was continuing the holiday spirit
into boxing day
and jangling jingle bells
as hard as they could
[new york sounds are a symphony]
December 25, 2024
christmas eve dreams
of arson with three sisters and me
to make a new life for ourselves
outside of the oppressive home
but loving our family enough
to have failsafes in place
just in case
just in case
but the strangest part of the dream
wasn’t the reasoning,
or the 1800’s garb against
1900’s cityscape buildings,
or even the minute details of the
arson
itself —
it was the fact that the next day
we had to do it all again, the house
magically un-burned
everyone’s memories erased
except for ours
except for ours
[and why did it go so much worse
the second time around?]
December 24, 2024
a very
ikea
christmas
the eve spent
in the store
lunch
and grabbing some things
much needed
for the house
[and a few things
not quite needed,
but wanted for a while]
and post-sunset spent
putting the items
together
the day
beginning with cinnamon rolls
and ending with
smoked/cured salmon
and of course
enjoying the furniture
we assembled
together
December 23, 2024
we can do it
we can get through
the darkest/coldest months
because already
the sun is rising a little earlier
and setting a little later
we’ve made it through the darkening
and now we just need to have the temperature
catch up
kipventures 