mundane poetry

January 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

so
i woke up at 4:45
and played the game of
“what will put me back to sleep”
because my brain was too awake with
anxiety

so i learned some french
and sign language
and cuddled my kip and my puppy
and stared at a crossword puzzle
and the internet
and even tried
just breathing
but
by 5:35
i was still in my too-awake-era
and kip wanted to get up anyway

so we both placed some clothes on our bodies
and i bundled up with the dog on a walk
and fed both animals
and sat down to write
and now it’s just past 6:30 am
and it feels strange to stare at the outside
pitch black
and think about how i’ve been awake already
for almost two hours

but i suppose that’s what happens
when stress brain just won’t
turn
off

December 14, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

perched
like a gremlin
atop the specialty cushion that is
supposed to
help my back/glute issues,
but only if i sit on it
like a normal human

no wonder i never fully
rid myself of my aches
and pains

December 3, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the experience
of hating wearing glasses so much
that every time they smudge
or get dirty
you refuse to take them off and clean them
because then
you would be giving in to the idea
that you’ll wear them
for more time
in the day
and you don’t want to give the concept of “glasses”
that satisfaction
[as foolish and ridiculous
as you know that sounds/is]
so then
days go by
and you simply tilt your head
this way
and that
to get around
each splot of smudge
and speckle of dirt
and the glasses themselves
are made up of mostly grime by this time
but
still
cleaning them
would indicate
intention
and you don’t intend
to wear your glasses
much
anyway

April 4, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

there is something
~tragic~
about terrible gum

especially in one’s
favorite
flavor:

the excitement
for the bright blue
of ultra-sour
blueberry

the curly-q
of a whole big tape
of bubble gum
waiting in front of you

and to have the initial unfurl
of the roll
snap
and break
and shatter
only bodes ominous
for the rest of the experience

and then
for the flavor to be good
for maybe four seconds
just makes the loss of flavor
later
hurt one’s soul
a million times over

and if that weren’t enough

right when you think you should just
spit it out
be done with it,
a random flavor pocket will burst to life
and you want to chew more
to not waste any flavor,
but the chewing hurts your jaw
and the flavoring is overall
so underwhelming

this disappointment
is one of the worst
of my life

[not really, but man,
when you are *in the mood* for some
blueberry bubble gum
and this happens…
the soul aches
for brand-name hubba bubba
bubble tape]

January 20, 2024

/ HJ / Leave a comment

interpretation
is 90%
of the poetry game

maybe that’s why i write so bluntly
so obviously
sans metaphor
sans simile
so the interpretation can be
exactly what it was meant to be

[or is this just another example
of me trying to hold on to control
of a thing i really can’t control at all?]

April 3, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i keep reaching for my coffee
[an unthought action]
but i don’t know if i’m ready
to discount the taste of toothpaste
in exchange for the bitter wake-up of coffee
quite
yet

February 20, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’m pretty great
at
poetry of the mundane
(if i can give myself that credit)
but i’ve been edging towards
a more gruesome poetry
as of late

poetry of the gross daily tasks
the icky parts of being human
the scattered co-morbids of mental illness
the ones with strange satisfactions

and i don’t want to subject readers to such poems
as odes to pimple popping
and detailed descriptions of how my anxiety makes me
pick my skin to bleeding
but
they are part of my human experience
so maybe
they are also a part
of yours
?

January 3, 2023

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i found an old USB drive,
the one my first college gave us,
and i know that there used to be poetry
on it–
the first poems i wrote
that weren’t
primary school assignments
or
teenage angst arrangements

but i haven’t opened it up and plugged it in yet

there are a few logical [and illogical] reasons for that:

first and foremost
none of my laptops have a USB port
any longer
(this is easily rectified
by the external bricks
that connect
most cords
with our computers–
i’m not 100% sure there’s a USB connection
on that thing
but i’m assuming
it is
more than likely)

the second is that
i don’t think i’d find
any surprises
there–
i saved all my college essays elsewhere
as well,
and if i were to go digging
i’d probably find
exactly the poems i had in mind–
so what’s the use
of trying to get my laptop to read
a fifteen year old piece of technology
to not unearth any fun finds

but surprises inside
are my third
hesitation
reason–
what if i
actually put on it
something i don’t necessarily want to see
now;
what if
i hid some angsty gems–
do i want that in my head
now?
and the worst surprise
i think i could find
is if there is actually nothing inside.

but look at me
not checking the brick
for a USB port,
not grabbing the drive
from the basement where it was nearly stepped upon,
not finding a way
to find out
what’s on it,
but instead writing a whole
silly
poem
about how i don’t want to know–
[but i still do want to
and that
is the
problem]