i am living in dreams
this morning:
asking my Grandmama all the questions i thought of
at her memorial;
snuggling with my Mom, refusing to question why
her dying would be a test
that i passed
after six months of her gone;
exploring a Gaza un-riddled with holes;
and persuading governments
Not
to fund a genocide.
these are my
wildest imaginings in sleep.
meandering thinking
writing
reprocessing my brain-wiring
into something maybe more conducive
to living life
calmly
patiently
happily
[if i can dream]
most days i’m at least
a little
excited to write
something
but this morning
damn near
nothing
makes me want to go
the way i normally go
[i’ve been shopping for unnecessary new clothes
as if i can change my entire life
by dressing like
someone new]
my fear
is so loud
that i’ll write about something
i don’t understand
and offend
or embarrass
[others/myself in that order]
and rather than trying
and learning
i hide
and hide harder
and hide longer
and hide farther into myself
just wanting
wanting
wanting
to write
but never doing any of it in sight.
sometimes i write poetry for the page
tapering each line down just a
little bit lower so that
aesthetically it
pleases
and other times i compose rows and rows of possibilities in my head
waiting for the right syllable to fit in
and taste so good as it fills my mouth
with alliterative qualities
i can’t imagine life without
and rhymes and mines of tongue twisters
laying in wait, waiting to trip up an unsuspecting mouth
but it all settles into something that i can chew and spit spit spit
out
with a rhythm all of my own making
all of my own devising
all of my own words
humbly arriving
as they should
but
most of the time
i create for
both
i wish
i wish
i wish
i didn’t make myself cringe
with every thought or written word or
every kind of close to rhyme
i just want to create art
that doesn’t care about being art
[that is the purest kind]
what you need to understand
[‘you’ in this case meaning
a new reader to this poetry blog]
is that i do not write poetry
carefully
i do not rewrite and rerewrite and rererewrite —
i throw some ideas on my keyboard
and sometimes they become words
and sometimes those words fit together
just enough
to become a poem.
i don’t write with purpose
except to get more and more art out into the world
[and get these loud loud stanzas out of my head]
i don’t write for perfectionism’s sake
since perfectionism runs/ruins the rest of my life.
what you need to understand
is that this will never be
e.e. [cummings]
or dickinson [comma] emily
or bukowski
or angel nafis
or rupi
[though my shorter poems definitely emulate her]
these poems are rarely edited
barely re-read
not much adjusted to page from my head —
there’s no rhyme scheme
except
what sometimes fits together happenstance-ily,
and helping the chaos
reign itself in
is what i’m doing with these words
again and again and again —
so please,
heed my warning,
don’t expect much literarily from these words/phrases/stanzas/poems —
but expect me to show up
as i am this [and every] morning
and get something out
from me
to myself
[and then to you, if you want to read it]
[no pressure tho]
unlikely
friends
unseen
enemies
undeveloped
plot lines
and unresolved
illnesses
i guess a good start to november?
i’m feeling so at odds with my own writing this morning
like it’s a morning for reading, not creating
but i made a promise to myself —
my morning pages are for myself
to just get out what needs to get out
[and it’s ok if the posted poem for today
was not actually written today
but
i do have to write *something* today]
so what is actually in my head this morning?
somehow
i’m excited
for this slow slow sunday
somehow
i’m excited
to catch up on all the chores stacked up
somehow
i’m excited
to do all the things i’ve been avoiding all week
somehow
i’m excited
for a little bit of normalcy again
[but not forever onward
just
just
just
the rest of this weekend]
kipventures 