my brain
(and bod)
are doing better than they were
the shaking and jittering
the depression and hopelessness
the overly-energized listlessness
are all but gone

but echos remain
and remind me of
whatever the fuck that was
that drove me damn near insane
(or, at least, reminded me of that time
my sanity was not quite a certainty)
and certainly
i’m still careful
traversing on the tiniest of eggshells,
wishing that the weight of what happened last week
would give me fodder for effortless poems
beautiful language
pleasing sounds in my mouth and ears and eyes
(and a sudden reminder of church lock-ins long since past
passes my eyes in a blink
and after being gone
in Pittsburgh, i think, was that particular church,
in less than a second
i’m back)
the creativity i used to have
isn’t gone
it’s just a little bit
changed.

(i mean,
yeah i wrote five million slam-poem-beginnings in high school,
but when did i write a whole ass novel?
that’s right, this year, damnit!)