January 8, 2022

too tired to write anything
of substance
too word-play-y
to not,
stuck in a limbo
of will i won’t i
(a new take on ‘will they won’t they’)
(get it, cuz i’m nonbinary and use they/them pronouns)

listening to music from the
‘Roaring 20’s’
so what are we?
‘The Coughing 20’s’?
‘The Dying 20’s’?
‘The Denying and Closing our Eyes and Covering our Ears and Screaming “[B]LA[B]LA[B]LA”
Over All the Signs
and Words of Learned Folks
and Science
20’s’?

i wish i had the compassion of
Amanda Gorman
the faith in people of
Anne Frank
the calmness and knowledge and belief
of so many
but i am caught between
i want to see the good
and
i can only see the bad
played
over
and
over
and
over
again
behind my eyelids
every time they close
(and most of the time while they’re open,
too)

i know i’m doing little
to halt/hold/stop the division
of one side
‘gainst the other,
but it’s hard to listen to folks
who’d never listen to me
were i to show them my true self,
who argue that folks like me
are a disease unto society
and deserve the worst of death.
if you can’t look at me like a human
then why should i listen to you
like your opinions have any say
in my living my own life
in my own honest way

(maybe this is why
it’s so important
to look inwards
for spirituality
as opposed to outwards)

but this poem
is kind of a mess,
but it is morning
so i can mull through
my thoughts of the day approaching
and get them all out of my fingertips
and onto this blank page/document/screen
for all to see
(or at least the six of you who usually read)
(hi, by the way)
and the poem doesn’t ~need~ to mean anything
it can just be,
a product of my brain,
my overthinking-
obsessive compulsive tendency-
pessimist in the body of an optimist-
-brain,
and leave it
for whomever may need it
(which might just be me
needing to get it out
in order to write
other things)

November 29, 2021

i’m feeling
settled
[not settling]
comfortable
in my own skin
in my place in life
content.

this is not an emotion i am familiar with
at all
but it’s nice to know it can come to me
every once in a while
(and maybe, just maybe,
this settled/comfort/contentment,
can propel me towards my next
endeavor.)

~~~

i feel like
i don’t do
Morning Pages/
Morning Poetry
the same as i used to,
but that could be ok.
maybe there are days when i need
to write/poem it out,
and those are the days when my word count
lands solidly into the mid-three digits,
and there are a few days when i know what i need to say
and one short poem
is all i need for the morning,
and then there are days like today
when i don’t need to write to figure things out,
but i’d like to write to
have something written
(and also because i’m figuring out how to be awake)
so i suppose
it’s all
alright.

~~~

someday
i’ll count all the hobbies
i’ve acquired
over the years
(and those with supplies
but no real forward movement)
but for today
i’ll say
i’m happy i have a spouse
who keys into my ever shifting hobbies
(and also flits in and out of their own)
so soon, this house will be filled with
wood whittling projects
and perhaps even a soldering pencil!

October 18, 2021

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.

October 15, 2021

wasn’t i complaining
yesterday
or the day before
(or the day before that)
that i wanted to get back to my
regularly scheduled schedule
and continue on in my routine of routines?

so why, now, comfortably sitting in
‘we’ve taken the dog out,
we’ve started the lofi beats spotify station,
we’re both at the table, doing our morning writings’
do i miss
so terribly
the hustle
the bustle
the never knowing what’s going to happen
from one moment to the next?

oh!

did i just need a cat in my lap?
this portion of my routine,
my every day,
my comfort and creativity,
that had been missing
pretty much
since we moved?

(even tho i do stop every few lines
to pet and love her
so she stays,
she still really does
help me
feel
the morning page
poetry
routine
i’d been missing
[and then immediately
got bored of].)

(she is the chaos
that i need
to appreciate
routine)

October 14, 2021

sometimes you have to eat
and read
before you can write and wake-up
and sometimes you have to just do the things you have to do
before writing that to-do list
and sometimes you need to look at where you’ve been
before going where you’re going
and sometimes you just have to cuddle your cat and dog
before being human.

October 12, 2021

trying to figure out
what i need
each
and every
morning
to feel fully
me

because i had a great time
these last couple of weeks
having coffee with my Kip
up on the deck
chatting
or planning
or meditating
or bird-watching
or dog-playing
’twas fun and new and exciting
(and the meditation certainly helps most of the time)

but my brain and body
have gotten used to
Morning-Pages
Morning-Poems
Morning-Putting-Thoughts-To-Tomes
that, apparently, without them, i feel
just
a little bit
lost…

i mean, clearly, i catch up,
do an afternoon poem,
or after a few days, back-schedule the words i write at the time
but this
pre-8:00-writing
this Morning-Gathering-My-Thoughts,
this is where my true me shines

(or maybe just the me that is the most
Raw)

September 26, 2021

in the morning
these pages
[these poems]
soothe me,
subdue me,
make me
more pliable
less early-morning-needing-a-strech-stiff-as-fuck,
and if the night has been restless
with less sleep than is ever needed
by me
i can sort through the fog
and become more of a person
(more of a me)
than i was in the deep dark depths of the
strugglenight

it used to be that
taking the glasses off
and sticking the contacts in
my eyes
was my way of waking up,
but recently
it seems
the sudden alertness
has been replaced with
a
slow, steady awareness
of the day
beginning
as i type out
my thoughts
moment by moment
word by word
letter by letter
thought by thought

[with, of course, the gracious assist
of a mug full of cold coffee
to aid as need be]

September 24, 2021

with multiple days away
(at least from the real, in the weeds, getting lost in writing,)
morning pages,
i feel like i Should be writing more,
like i Should have a plethora of backup
just waiting to burst forth
onto the page[screen]
but i’m also meandering
like [[yesterday]]
and just kinda typing
for typing’s sake

where did my morning pages go?