metaphor

April 6, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i can remember
being seven-years-old
and having such a hard time
swallowing one big multi-vitamin
while on our trip to florida
(so i wouldn’t get stick or anemic or something of the sort)

i have a visceral memory
of knowing it was good for me
but having the pill get caught in my throat
and no amount of water could ease the discomfort
that continued on down my chest
for nearly an hour afterwards

i probably cried
(i did a lot at that time)
and every day that pill seemed bigger
and the water less helpful
and i struggled and struggled and struggled.

today, i can easily take
one multivitamin,
five spiro pills,
a zyrtec,
a wellbutrin,
and a couple of other things, if needed
in one swallow and gulp of water
and nearly every time it easily goes down
i ponder what was wrong with me
at age seven
to not be able to take
one simple
pill
alone.

but this story seems to be lacking
an awareness of where i was at the time
both physically
and practice-wise:
not only was i starting from zero experience
of how to swallow anything whole,
i also had the average-sized throat
of an average-sized seven-year-old,
and i cannot go on
judging my yesteryear self
based on today’s standards…

but i know that’s what i’m doing
when i judge my past self
for putting on these coping mechanisms
that have grown with me as i’ve aged
and, more often than not, gotten in my way
but i was working with very little knowledge,
less stable hormonal levels,
and no real parental [or societal] guidance

and i also know
that i shouldn’t judge my today self
for where i may be in future healing—-
i still have to dig through the muck
and learn and grow
in order to get where i think i’ll go

so i guess what i’m saying
(to my own self and to you
if you need to hear this today, too)
is that ‘be kind to yourself’ is not just some
lily-livered
social justice
pansy-assed
liberal
sweet talk
in order to have more compassion
for yourself as part of the human race,
it is also
simple
factual
that you cannot judge yourself
based
on what you don’t yet know
or
how you haven’t yet grown

and i hope that helps
both of us.

March 26, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

poetry
[for me]
is simply raining down
haphazard hail
at whatever can capture my words
and showing off this bouquet
of symbols making meaning of emotional existence
and asking if anyone at all enjoys
the fragrance

[and/or the mixed metaphors]

January 17, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

if we are to attack with metaphor
with analogy
with any sort of literary
device at our side
what would my depression be?

a shadow?

sounds too cliché
too perfect
but hear me out:

it’s always there
just sometimes i can’t see it
from my particular angle
and different environments
make it a different type
of shadow:
large and looming/
grounded and serene and looking just like me/
a tiny pool of darkness at my feet/
or not at all there
(but change one light
one type
of something
anything
in the room/place
and there it is again
and the question of
‘did it really leave
or was it just laying
in wait?’
and i’m unsure if we’re speaking
within the explanation or reality
within the metaphor or truly
just talking about my relationship
with my ever-constant frenemy
depression)

so if that darkness
is a shadow
what is my constant worry
of anxiety
what new analogy
could i find
for thee?

August 16, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i should have known
that the answer wasn’t
‘both’
when asked if i liked to work more with
details
or
big picture
things,
simply based on my reaction to being presented with
either.
when asked to look at minute details
i feel like i’m being laid into a giant warm bed
that fits me perfectly
that itself cuddles back.
and when being presented with
the big picture
i’m overwhelmed to the point of
panic attack

~~~

this
computer
is on its last legs
(or its last keys)
the multiplying of vowels
has at least tripled
(except for the rare occasion
when a letter simply
doesn’t)
but now the delete button
and space bar
are on the fritz
and a few consonants
are also acting awry
and i
think should just bite the bullet
and let Kip transfer my things
over to the new [to me] laptop
but this machine is where i wrote a novel,
and this is where my Morning Poems started,
and i took all my zoom classes
here,
and it feels like
an end to an era
when it’s simply
upgrading to the next model
and i
need to stop worrying
about losing all my things–
Kip knows how to transfer
and i’ve saved in at least two different places
and i should trust technology
some day
(maybe today?)

~~~

my body
and brain
just want to go back to
adjusting every little date
on my transfer
from goodreads to storygraph
because tiny details
and mindless tasks
feed my soul
like pudding;
filling it with empty calories
that i know should go
after a full meal
(of poetry-writing, perhaps?)
but i secretly just want
to eat sweets
and do teensy tasks
whenever i feel
any kind of
hunger

May 3, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it is
very
hard to concentrate this morning

and i don’t know if it’s from
the stress of last night
or
the vividness of the dreams
or
the sadness of this morning
or
the lack of coffee in my bloodstream
or what

but

it is
very
extremely
extraordinarily
bizarrely
quite
hard to concentrate this morning.

~~~

i feel like i’m getting a better handle
on what makes my poetry
my poetry

(but i really have
absolutely
no idea
still
about what makes any poetry
‘good poetry’)

~~~

i would like to write
another
slam poem;
start a flow
and just go,
balance out the rhythm and rhyme
with internal structure,
alliteration,
and find
the transitions,
the cues,
from one section
to anther,
playing with words
and meaning
and framing
the repeating
as metaphor
as a tool
as a lock to turn the key
and find out something new
about me,
about life,
about our home planet earth,
and our collective strife
to stay alive
when all we want
is eternal sleep
(not necessarily because
death is the answer we’re looking for,
but because all these
isms
and power structures
and so-ingrained made up concepts
keep us so wide awake
that sleep seems a necessity
we never get to get
[when was the last time you had
an actual
honest to goodness
no stress
very good
night’s sleep?]

so i guess
that’s what this poem’s about:
the collective trauma
that is
white supremacy/capitalism/america
and how the one thing
that could give us
the fight
we need
to dismantle it
is the the thing
it keeps us
from doing
every
single
night.

(and are my daytime naps
my making up
for this lack,
or is that just a symptom
of the depression
my awareness
of these systems
gives me?)
((or is that a subject
for another poem
for another day?))

March 10, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

emotions
swirling
around
scattered and unfounded
(at least half of them)

~~~

do i want to
do work
then
be creative,
or can i
somehow
find the creativity
inside the work?

~~~

all the possibilities
and none of the
decision-making confidence.

~~~

all?
or none?
or some?
now?
or later?
or combine?
or alone?
or is it even worth it?

~~~

i wish i remembered what it was like
to find my path of thought
through
the poetry at my fingertips
instead of
halting
phrases
catching
words
tiny poems
barely scratching the surface
of all that’s underneath
this rainbow hair…

~~~

if i trace the keyboard
gently
will it make the words come easier?
will the emotions be quantifiable
and able to be categorized
and boxed up
and shipped out
to future me
to deal with
in a different [head]space?

February 10, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’m so sad
too sad
the sad that doesn’t go away
the sad where the minute you think you’ve made progress
you’ve figured out that feelings are all meaningless
and will pass any moment now
into a new feeling
you are reminded of some way you are
objectively
awful
(forgotten appointments/
late projects/
letting people down/
not good enough for your own standards/
etc./etc./etc./)
and you fall into that pit
once more
(not that you’d gotten out
you had just climbed far enough
to at least see the light,
but here you are
[rock]bottom of the pit of despair
)

(…but you know
this could all be a trap
that pit could have a trick floor
a trap door
and you could be pulled
even more
even further
even farther
down.)

October 18, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

just atop a grain of rice
it makes my laptop all
wibbly-wobbly.
and something so small
that affects so much
has to be a metaphor (right?)
(ok, granted, my laptop is far closer to the size of the grain of rice
than say
myself
or
the universe
but still,
size-wise
it is quite
small.)

so

what great insight can i gain from this
“rice under the laptop”
experience?

perhaps to always look for the root cause of an issue
and to not judge too harshly
if the core issue seems
“too small”
to affect that much.

or maybe the lesson here is to simply
clean off the table
between meals and morning pages.

August 2, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

what to write
in these morning pages poetries
the cuffs on my sleeves are long
and tight
and the tightness in my chest is just a little bit looser
today
but i don’t wanna jinx it
(i never want to jinx it)
because we’re still waiting to hear back
and i’m still trying to get over my own shit in my own head
and the thread of this poem is slowly fraying
and i’m praying
(though i never pray)
(so much so that i have to look up whether it’s ‘prey’ or ‘pray’)
that someday i’m able to ride this roller coaster of life
inside one of the cars
instead of fishtailing off the last contraption
caught
and desperately catching
at
anything that passes me by
but it’s wizzing past too fast
and i can’t seem to grasp
anything for long enough to remember it by
so my memory is filled with blurry images
and the feeling in my stomach as we rise and free-fall and whip around corners and tumble and zoom and loop-the-loop and…
and…
and the longer i think about this
the more i realize
roller coaster as life is a cliché for a reason
the slow beginning
each year clicking by
taking an eternity
waiting for something to actually start
childhood
the track
set straight
controlled
and just when you think you have your shit figured out
just when you think you’re ready for the freedom
the track continues to box you in
but the pace is uncontrollable
and yes there are moments throughout
that aren’t quite as fast
but none of them are ever as slow
as the beginning
(except, maybe, the end)
and i’m trying not to think that i’ve discovered something crazy new,
that i’ve come upon flame for the first time
that i’m inventing the wheel
or anything like that
but it sure makes sense
and maybe those two cents on life
will help my brain sense of why i constantly feel so out of control
i need to control other parts of my being
with such a tight fist.

April 19, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the sleep
of the deep dive
into the ocean of dreams
(is maybe too much of a metaphor for this morning)
because
i am used to treading water
half submerged
half awake
half aware
ready for the rescue of the alarm
to pull me out

but last night
even when i felt myself
in perfect treading form,
that might have been
deep
deep
down
because the alarms didn’t carry me
away