poem a day

February 14, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

where do these sads come from?
and where do they go when they leave my head?
because, without them, i swear they never existed at all
but with them…

with them, they are
all i’ve ever known
and all i’ll ever have
and the desolation brings with it such desire
to run
to hide
to thwart off
to give in
(even though the only thing that truly helps
is simply
waiting it out,
feeling it,
but waiting it out)

but worse
i think
than the fullness
of with
or without
are the days when i can feel the sads
simply
laying in wait
they’ve not left
but they aren’t overwhelmingly there
everything just feels too
grey to hope
too
stale to cope
too
desolate to even try
to have a good day.

at least when the sads are at their
full force
it’s something;
it’s a feeling,
an emotion,
a carving out
of this day different from the rest

the in-between times
feel like a never-ending
static
in my mind/heart/life
and numbness
to it all

February 13, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

yesterday
Kip and i walked outside sans coats,
and built a greenhouse on our deck,
and swept away dead leaves,
and soaked up the sun
as long as we could
(and still a little longer)
knowing that
February 50-degree weather
lasts not nearly as long
as most would like…

and lo and behold,
this morning we woke to
giant, wet snowflakes
dropping from the sky,
piled high on the greenhouse,
and packed atop the steps
kip had so painstakingly ridded of leaves
less than twelve hours prior.

but we still walked
(with coats)
and kip built a tiny snow-person
and the sun didn’t shine as brightly through the snow-clouds,
but i suppose this is the point
of living somewhere
with cycles of weather
that come and go;
so you remember to enjoy the sun
when it arrives…

and it will arrive
again
soon.

February 12, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

ignore the shoulds
the have-tos
the obligations
the following of the rules
even the suggestions set out by those not within you

you know your brain
(though sometimes it may not feel like it)
you know your heart
(though you used to ignore it)
you know the gut feelings and the the things that feel right in your
soul,
so
just follow
those

(even if they don’t make much sense in the
present
tense)

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.)

February 9, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

organization
is not my strong suit
and i’ve watched enough tiktoks to know
that i’m definitely not neurotypical
but in which direction?

is my extreme self-reliance on what i can remember
(with mostly successful strategies)
simply a life-long coping mechanism?
is my delving into the human condition
and socializing within characters
a masking tactic that’s been going on longer than i can remember?
or am i simply lucky enough
to have a very, very slight neuro-diversity
that doesn’t necessarily fit into either box
that my parents were kind enough not to force out of me
(or did society hit where my parents tried not to
as it hit in other ways?)

would i ever get diagnosed if i saw a ‘professional’?
almost definitely not.
but
i know my brain doesn’t work the way the ‘majority’ of brains
‘are supposed to’
so where does that leave me?

[alone?]

February 8, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

listen
to the same song
6, 8, 10 times in a row
memorize the words
memorize the favorite moments
(the parts of the song that make your brain go
‘brr’
)
and still adore it
listen to it some more the next day
and the next
and the next
until you know it like the back of your hand,
you could write essays, diatribes, theses about the song
and then wonder why it is
certain songs
bring up
certain time periods of your life
so viscerally

February 7, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i keep pondering early in this
panini
when i wrote and wrote
pages upon pages
freehand
freeverse
free of other older morning page expectations
and i wondered what the world would be like
‘post’
pandemic…
and i felt it,
at the very core of my being
that we’d
‘go back to normal’
before it was really,
truly,
clear
to do so,
and that the ‘normal’
we were heading back towards
had the potential to change,
to be a ‘normal’ benefitting more people
than the normal
benefitting a very
very
very
tiny
percentage,
but i felt it,
that it wouldn’t change
we “couldn’t” change
we wouldn’t change.

and lo and behold
all my strife
from mid-march 2020
to april, may, june, july 2020
most of that has come to fruition:
we aren’t ready,
people are still catching
ventilizing
dying
and half the population is still
pretending
this virus
doesn’t exist.
and of course
we’re going
‘back to the grind’
as if that’s a good thing,
as if it’s strength
or a moral righteousness
that gets you through
(rather than random genetics
and generational privileges
and a system set up to benefit
the few)
and as if
this ‘grind’
is our entire culture
(i mean, at this point, it is,
but that doesn’t make it
good
or right)

and i wish i had something better to say
than ‘i saw this coming’
i mean, i’m sure folks more versed in
infectious disease
and sociology
and economy
and the ‘why’s’ of all this
also saw this coming…
i guess i just wish
i’d had more time
to live in a world of hope
than i actually got.

February 6, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

three hundred days
not quite one year
three hundred days
far more than three hundred poems
three hundred days
a promise to myself and none other
three hundred days
a streak honestly acquired
(though sometimes through catching up)
three hundred days
i won’t get the alert until after i post this exact poem
but today
i know
i know
because yesterday was 299
i’ve been doing this whole
poem-a-day thing
for three hundred days
and i guess i can be proud of myself for that.

~~~

green around the house
green on the roof
rainbows shifting dancing swirling cranking
throughout the room
echos of classical
(some call ‘evil’)
and the cat scratching
and the fake fireplace flickering
and the humidifier humidifying
and my spouse done cleaning
so our giant table is a table once again
(and no longer just a clutter-catcher)
and though there’s still some more cleaning to do
this house really is starting to feel more like
our
home

~~~

i need a third
here
(what would a three-hundredth day be
without turning into a three-poem-day?)
but my brain isn’t in a hugely poem-izing mood
anymore
and any old poems i might insert
were either re-written there
or up here

so what else to do but
write a poem
about
writing a poem
like all my little meta-hipster-cells
want me to do

[how long is too long
to stare into space
and come back with
nothing]

February 5, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

open the eyes
crawl out of the bed
put on the clothes
brush the teeth
grab the laptop
shuffle down the stairs
write the poetry
be dissatisfied in the poetry
listen to the ‘evil classical’ playlist
zone out for a bit
write more of the poetry
be dissatisfied in the poetry
meow back at the cat
drink the coffee
read the script for the new podcast
gaze at the dog
write even more of the poetry
feel generally ok about the poetry
change the capitalization
copy and paste into the website
publish the poem
get on with the day