poem a day

May 29, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the never-ending trap
of Time
growing up it seems to go by so slowly
long summer nights
endless school days
waiting for santa claus
waiting to perform
waiting to hear back about important news
but somewhere around teenage years
it starts to slide
and no longer is there more time than you know what to do with
but it starts downhill and seems to snowball
out of control
days slip past you in the blink of an eye
(how has it been a decade since i went to college?)
and especially for someone like me
who has very little tracking in my internal clock about time
who could easily talk to a best friend from years gone by
and just be excited that we have even more life stories to talk about
it’s hard to quantify
where those years all went
because to me
they seem
to just
be…

gone

May 28, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

big changes ahead
but way far ahead
too far ahead
(will they ever come true ahead)

but i’m usually itching to change
or so fearful it hurts
but right now everything feels…
…
…
…
…shifty
(is that the right word?
i was originally going to go with ‘stale’
but that’s usually what it feels like
when i desire the change,
but ‘content’ isn’t right either,
i’d be happy to change
or happy to stay,
i think it feels like there are things in flux
that i am not yet aware of
that maybe i can follow a path
that is being set for me as of right now
(though
as i write this
i know
i’m stubborn
and contrary
and i’ve never followed a pre-determined path in my life
[except when it comes to recipes]
i don’t know how to align
the alignment
i feel like i need to do more research
into myself)
maybe,
the path that’s being set
is my own?)

(if only…)

May 27, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

why is it that
when i was so young
(and looked like a baby)
i felt so damn old,

and why is it that
now that i’m older
(though i still look a bit young)
i feel like a baby?

(i actually know the answer to this:
it’s the trauma.)

May 26, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

writing
posting
editing
sharing
there is a different me that comes out
whenever i start to edit and actually do things
(but, again, is that the real me?
is there only one true real me?
are all these hjs part of the one true hj?)
and that’s why i get so freaked out
with the internet and social media
because it only really allows for one of you,
when truly
everyone is made up of so much:
their thoughts and feelings
their past and memories
their response to trauma
their response to non-trauma
any mental illness(es) they may (or may not) have
their likes
and loves
and dislikes
and hates
the people who raised them
the people they raised
the people surrounding them
the people they’ve stopped attaching themselves to
their schooling
their education
(because those are two separate things)
their hobbies and interests
the things they do when they’re bored
the dreams and hopes and aspirations
and even as i list these things
even if i were able to list all the things i could think up
in words and analogies and metaphors and phrases
it still wouldn’t be enough
because,
though i do love to complain about them,
humans are beautiful and complex creatures,
and they can never be summed up
in words;
the ineffable beings,
the infinity of selves,
they (we) all hold inside.

May 24, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s my father’s b-day
the 60th time he’s celebrated
and i cannot be with him
due to this damn virus
(and our government’s inability to smartly control it)
(and our society’s allergy to listening to intelligence)
and i don’t remember how i felt last year…
how did we cope at being stuck inside
unable to visit those we wanted to connect with
unable to say Happy Birth[day] in person
(even though most birthdays were done long-distance
there was something to be said
about having the
option…
i always assumed i’d create a huge celebration for my dad’s 60th
but now, i suppose, i gotta wait till his 61st
(which i’m actually looking forward to,
as he was born in ’61)
but still
i wish i could be there
but it’s ok that i’m not
it’s ok that i’m not
it’s ok that i can’t)

May 23, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel so disconnected from myself
but i’ve had so many selves over the past 27+ years
am i disconnected from all of my selves
or just the most recent?
(because if we’re being brutally honest,
this is pretty close to the self that i had in late high school/early college,
complete with internal struggles
and external outbursts
and not connecting with anyone the way i might have wanted
or needed)
but i can’t place my finger on what’s different…
is it that i have better coping mechanisms?
is it that i have kip?
is it that i have beings to care for?
(and even then, there’s something stale and over-done in all of this,
even within the difference…)
i feel that need for a change,
the way i only get when i’m frustrated and groping for something to hold on to.
this would be the perfect time to get that tattoo;
i’ve been pondering it for the last five years,
so it wouldn’t be a stupid/rash/spontaneous decision
but it would probably fulfill my urges towards self harm
(but in a healthier way, and isn’t that what we want?
we can’t necessarily get rid of all our coping mechanisms
but we can choose the healthier[est] of the options…)

what i want
more than anything
is to be a kid again
to explore the woods behind our property
and feel like i have no expectations on me,
feel like i still have my entire life ahead of me,
because, damn, i’ve felt like most of my life has been over
since i was fifteen/sixteen,
and it hasn’t been true yet,
so why do i keep acting like it is.

May 22, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

fear,
longing,
loathing,
fright,
fear
fear
fear
new situations
new [old] people
new experiences
fear
fear
fear
stress
interpersonal relationships
consistency
inconsistency
adventure
reliability
responsibility
fear
past
nostalgia
future
expectations
present
moment
where?
fear
fear
fear.

May 21, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

should i still be aiming for a word count
if my goal is simply a kind of getting in touch with my creativity
my brevity
my word choice
my ability?

going through poems the other day,
in a frenzy to organize my most disorganized thoughts,
gave me the reminder that i once wrote five hundred words
easily
in one poem
my structure was simply
get the thought out
ponder it
in poem form
use the words
sparingly
but still explore
within words
what the concept means to me

do i not do that anymore?
or was the long form a new addition to the creative family
taking up residence in my brain?

kipventures poetry started out as shorter form,
some days only one to three lines
describing a whole adventure in a strange new place

so…why does nothing feel that familiar anymore?

should i explore what this family of creatives does
in my head?
or is that a one-off concept
simply useful for that singular line
and
(ope, another random memory
this time the apartment kip and i shared
in that house
in Pittsburgh
[what is it with Pittsburgh
recently?]
the sunlight streaming in through the attic bedroom windows
the weird mirrored closet doors
driving around
five below
dunken donuts vegan bacon on bagel breakfast sandwiches
that whole summer
stressful
and yet
such good memories)
what even was i talking about?

i went off on another tangent
in my brain
of when kip and i were first together
mowgli hadn’t even been born yet
but louka was living her
hard dog life
(in dog jail, if the stories are true)
and how do/will i feel about that?
if we do end up being able to adopt
and our baby is already born as of right now
am i going to look back on this time and think
‘i was so privileged, and our baby was so not,
what was i doing enjoying my life
while our baby was in trouble?’
but i can’t know that now
there are too many possibilities
to ponder
i know this is the anxiety
but it also feels like the worst super-power;
i can imagine and contemplate and see all paths,
past, present, future,
the possibilities endless
and they are all in my
stupid human brain
the insurmountable number
being
what makes my brain
damn near explode
(maybe i am super-human
simply from being able to hold all those possibilities
without any sort of fiery
boom,
but who knows;
it’s building up
it could happen
any day
now…)

May 20, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

vaccinated
activated
impervious to what 2021 can throw at me
(jk, that’s a total lie, please don’t be mean to me, 2021!)

what i’d really like is to feel like i belong somewhere again…
i found it last in the troika
and the magpies
and bst

why
do i even want to fit in
i’ve spent my life wanting to be weird,
to be against the grain
to march to the beat of my own drummer.
and i don’t really want to march to everyone else’s drummer,
far from it,
but there is a bit of a feeling of relief
when one finds that someone else can hear their own beat
that at least one other is dancing just as emphatically
empathetically
our bodies moving in similar rhythms
finding a symmetry in our differences
and i think i miss that in platonic friendships
most of all
because i do still have my spouse
dancing to our drum-beats
blues rhythms
and slinky dips
and our silly dances made up of inside jokes
but i need variety
adventure
something new
but something that connects me to more than just me
(and kip and i are, at this point, just one person, if we’re being totally honest)
but where do i find that connection
that dance
when there’s a global panda express still raging on
and i can’t seem to stop myself from observing when i meet new people
and i’m still afraid of the internet, the place most of us are meeting new people/
connecting with old
in this day and age?

i think i just want an acting gig,
as i spoke about with my scene partner for class,
a recurring role on a sci-fi series,
regular acting roles that exercise my imagination so it’s always in tip top shape
silly makeup
making use of my weird look
weird hair
(the hair that that baby said made me look like a rockstar last night)
and maybe i can connect with characters…
that is the way that i often connect,
that was the confusion my first try at college,
wasn’t it?
was i falling in love with that boy
or was i falling in love with his character
or was my character falling in love with him
or was my character falling in love with his character
and on and on and on
connections lasting as long as
a show
or a class
or a simple scene
but they were still connections
(quick/fast/dirty/just how i like ‘em)