if every person
is coming from a place
of either love
or fear,
and i am fully committed to love
in my interactions with others,
but i’m so afraid
alone…
does that mean i’m interacting
with myself
solely through
fear?
[where is my love for me?]
if i’ve ever said
‘i love you’
i still do.
if i’ve ever told you
we should meet up for coffee
and chat the day away,
i’ve actually meant it.
if you’ve ever meant a great deal to me
you still do.
time is a mortal construction
and isn’t linear.
i don’t have
‘friendship degradation mechanics’
and if we’ve had a falling out
i’ve told you so.
if we’ve simply drifted
apart
from one another
(over time or space or experiences)
just know
i think of you often
and if you were to reach out
to me
for that coffee/chat/catchup
i’d be on top of that opportunity
in an instant
but
i don’t know how other people work,
so i don’t say ‘hey’ out of the blue
when i really mean
‘you’ve been on my mind
my whole life
and i still think of you
as you were
at 11 or 16 or 22,
but i know people grow
and i’d love to see
how you’ve grown
because you are important to me
and i love hearing you tell stories,
and debating opinions on tv shows,
and getting to see inside your soul’
because that’s
~~too much~~
for some people
(and i don’t know if that’s the direction you’ve grown
so
i play it safe
and i say
nothing.)
windy nights
and nightmares,
the storm of the century
(or at least of the year so far)
though probably no great catastrophes
or losses
except the loss of any restful sleep
and the catastrophes made up
in our minds:
big thuds
(was it real?)
giant wasps
(totally not real, right?)
and smart thieves using the sound of the storm
to cover any footfalls or break-in attempts
(logic says no one would want to be out in this
crazy
giant drip rain wet snow in the cold windy climate,
but boy do our imaginations
run away with us,
and our dreams take us
exactly to the place(s) we fear
most
and give us the fright
of our life
(or at least
of the night)
and now
everyone
[dog,
cat,
kip, and kip]
needs a nap.
)
the wind rushes through the trees
rustling the branches much stronger than a breeze
that pushing of the wind, the apprehension i feel,
used to be so frightening to me, but now, there’s appeal
the wind brings changes, newness, the switch of the seasons
and while change is scary, it’s no longer frightening without reason
i choose to look towards the possibility of what change may bring
and hear whatever the winds choose to sing
for in this poem, this struggle of rhyming couplets,
i’ve found a calmness in my fear’s former culprit
and that, i think, is worth this hassle of a rhyme-scheme.
a little in my own head
a little outward reaching
a little writing for an audience
a little writing for just myself.
i spent years trying to quiet
the cacophony of my mind
and now i find
i’d love to hear just a tad of it
again;
the thoughts racing each other
to the finish line of my mind
my fingers scrambling to keep up
every moment a passing thought
could pass me by
so i sat by
and wrote,
caught
as i could
a word here
a concept there
and it made me feel
important
it made me feel
artistic
it made me feel
invincible
it made me feel
somehow
more.
and when the thoughts disappeared
when my head was no longer too much
but, instead, not enough
a blankness surrounded in mysterious anxious feeling
the emptiness louder than any giant conglomeration of too-much-thought
ever was…
i’m in-between now
the thoughts are fairly loud
but they’re not all-encompassing
nor would i call them a cacophony;
i still have moments of blankness
that scare me
surrounded by anxiety,
flitting worries,
depression,
but overall it’s much better than it was
(but i do miss
the racing
the hugeness
the cacophony
the need to get everything out in writing
that desperation;
it was like a friend.)
~~~
craft the words
pull them towards
needing to express
needing to relax
deep breaths
four counts
(why does that make me feel like i’m drowning)
~~~
my sleek black panther of a cat
with nary a speck of other color on her
(save for the bright amber-yellow of her eyes)
has developed
four
white whiskers
but only on her right side
and i suppose it’s a sign of aging
and i suppose i should take it as a natural indication of time
passing
and i suppose i should admit she’s getting old
but she still chases nothings
like a kitten
and yells at us
all day
and climbs on top of us
like she’s less than the ten-pound bowling ball she’s become
and meows and purrs on my lap
starved for attention
most mornings
and acts
in most fashions
like she’ll never grow up
and i love her so.
the first
of any month
scares the crap out of me
i’m so much more able to ignore
the steady, streaming, passage of time
if the dates just keep flowing.
but the reset,
the sudden jump back to single digits,
the shock to my system as i readjust…
write new dates,
set new goals,
pay new bills,
(does it never end?)
~~~
you’d think
for someone who has new years in their top favorite holidays
new beginnings wouldn’t hurt so damn badly
~~~
poetry about something real
(kind of like prose)
flows out of me smoothly,
effortlessly,
the words coming even without me pondering them
the appearance on the document
pristine
and as i go
i think more and more
and harder and harder
and second guess
and try to have a nice ending
(are poems made for tidy endings?)
and i fizzle,
or overanalyze,
and what started as a journey
ends in near virtual reality
can my poems ever truly reflect
what’s happening
in my brain?
in that strange way
i’m feeling very much a certain way
a solid emotion?
[that never happens;
i am a master intellectualizer]
i suppose my one emotion
is the burgeoning of emotions.
in therapy i’m asked
‘how does that make you feel?’
and i can follow my thought process
what it makes me think of
the connections i make with past/present/future
but emotions? what a laugh.
[is my go-to coping mechanism no longer humor?]
intellectualizing is a fine coping mechanism
for someone not trying to actually get in touch with their emotions
but as an actor, i’d like to have a whole toolbox to play with
not just ‘all good emotions’
not just ‘all emotions that aren’t too tough’
not just ‘all emotions that don’t make me feel out of control’
my biggest fear is going crazy, losing control on my concept of reality
and if i let the ‘bad’ emotions in, how will i ever be able to stop them?
how will i stay in control of where/who/what i am,
when i feel like i’m a pre-teen and in Ohio and totally out of control
when i feel even a shadow
of those feels
i know i should
i know it’ll be good for me
i know i won’t lose touch with all of reality
but that doesn’t make it any less scary.
fear,
longing,
loathing,
fright,
fear
fear
fear
new situations
new [old] people
new experiences
fear
fear
fear
stress
interpersonal relationships
consistency
inconsistency
adventure
reliability
responsibility
fear
past
nostalgia
future
expectations
present
moment
where?
fear
fear
fear.
i want to do
something
with all these poems
posting them seems the best option
but also
i’m scared.
i’m scared of people seeing them
i’m scared of no one seeing them
i’m scared i’ll succeed
i’m scared i’ll fail
i’m scared of so many things
(when did i get so scared?)
~~~
creativity
breeds
creativity
depression
breeds
depression
just keep that in mind.
~~~
oh
when did i start writing
for me?
kipventures 