when words are your art form
and you have trauma that takes away
the memory centers for language retention
what does that mean for
everything?
poem a day
March 6, 2023
the problem with leaving
with vacationing
with taking a [much needed] break
is that your whole world
continues on
without you
i want a break
where i can rest up
relax
absolve my mind of all the thinking it does
calm my brain/body/soul until it’s reset
and pick back up from where i left off
but people still exist even when you aren’t around to see them
and systems still continue on in perpetuity
and seasons/entropy/growing/dying/
everything keeps going
even when you are
on your little
break
i just want time to stop
i just want a pause
or a reset button
or rewind
or something
to help my brain understand
what happened over the last 27+ years of my life
because the way i’m going right now
there’s no reason or rhyme or
timing that makes any
sense
and so i keep going
i do not rest
because i know any break i get
won’t actually do
what i need it to
so i keep going
and keep going
and keep going
and that can’t be very healthy
[but i see no other way]
March 5, 2023
the panic in my body
gives way too easily
for how harsh it first appears
i don’t know if the approach is a remnant of
pre-hormone-stabilizing
or childhood trauma
or what
/
i don’t know if the swiftness with which
it all leaves
is some kind of trick my mind has decided to play
but whatever the cause
and for whatever reason
i suppose i’ll take it today
March 4, 2023
have you ever just
sat down and felt
the overwhelming urge to weep?
yeah, me neither…
March 3, 2023
my heart points me towards
the poems i want to write
sometimes i need to just place down
some gibberish at the beginning of a document
to let my heart lead me where it needs
but it always leads me
somewhere
but when my brain wants to poetize about something
and the heart is not at all aligned
every word feels false,
every metaphor forced,
and i leave wondering if i actually
did more damage to the subject
than honor and love and art
i suppose this just means that
poetry, even my own, was always
a heart-driven/emotional act
(and the overthinking can just
stay away while i write,
please!)
March 2, 2023
i stall
and wait
and put off
until it’s been too long
and it would be embarrassing
to point out how long it’s been since we’ve talked
and then i wait just a little bit longer
and maybe, by the time we do
end up talking, it will
simply be a nice
surprise
March 1, 2023
we are teaching our puppy
the names of all her toys
as well as the signs for them
(some official ASL
some a bit made up by us)
she knows her Pizza so well
and Ring
and Smile
and sometimes she can remember Monster, Bear, and Fidget Spinner,
we’re still working on Pumpkin, Triple, Scarecrow, Blanket, and Pie,
and wherever her Ball is, she knowns that one, too
the hope is to get her to fetch each toy
by name
by silent sign
to prove how smart of a dog she is
but so far, she has simply taught us
how much she loves that
squeaky Pizza.
February 28, 2023
it took until
the night before
the last day of February
for snow to fully blanket
New York City
and that last day,
did it glisten and glow?
did it soften the world?
were there snowmen and angels about?
no.
24 hours post-semi-blizzard,
the air around it
started to melt the white stuff,
and turn it into ice over that night,
and dripping, dropping slush the next day.
what a grey and gloomy,
cold and foreboding,
proof of climate change winter
we’ve had this year
February 27, 2023
slant rhymes
sidelines
within this line the image aligns
too obvious
too salacious
too heavy-handed to be a poem by my hand
but here i am
writing just for writing’s sake
opening my soul to a computer screen
to see what
(if anything)
takes
February 26, 2023
we have such
dramatic plants
in this house
drooping/
withering/
shriveling up
if we water them less
than twice a week
but add water
and it’s like watching those pill pockets filled
with strange sponge creatures
slowly grow into
full being
[again]
and of course
heaven forbid we
over-water those same plants…
it’s a delicate balance
and one i’m only just starting
to learn
[hence knowing/seeing
how dramatic, really
these plants can be]
kipventures 