poem

May 2, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

will i ever do
anything
with these poems
?

~~~

how does my brain go from
zero to brilliant concept
in the early morning light
but struggles to even discuss
the rest of my morning
(in poetical form)
just twenty minutes later?

~~~

and if i’m struggling
with concepts
in mornings
does that imply that
i should start writing
in the evenings
[instead/as well]?

or am i
simply
struggling
because all i actually want to be doing
is reading my own book?

(and then is that
because
it’s actually good
or because
i simply wrote
what i want
out of a book
?
)

~~~

oh
to be as adept
at knowing
[and incorporating]
language/words
as well as
e. e. cuummings

~~~

five poems
and barely over
one hundred and twenty five words

~~~

what
will my day hold
next?

May 1, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i felt like
two days ago
i was worried it was close to the end of the month
then i found out
it wasn’t even the 20th yet
and today, today it’s the beginning of May
and my sense of time hasn’t been this off
since the beginning of the Global Patrick Stewart
last year
(over a year
ago
now)
and i have to wonder
if my sense of time is off
or if i just looked at the calendar wrong
or if time is a myth
and a mortal construction
and any feelings of ‘shoulds’
within the constraints of
‘time’
are all a product of capitalism
which in itself is a product of white supremacy
and we should be dismantling it all,
right?

April 30, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

staring at this blank screen
trying to come up with the poems to write today
the concepts flowing in and out
thinness
and queerness
and how they intersect
body dysmorphia and dysphoria
(words i get so mixed up
because they are near equally balanced in my mind
and while they are two stems
they seem to bud into the one same flower),
and how these all intersect
but i’ve thrown a rib out of place
and i am spending a little too much time concentrating on
keeping the ice pack where it needs to be
even while my cat shifts her weight around on my lap,
and trying to pay attention to what positions i’m in
when the pain gets to a bit of a crescendo,
and apparently these are the things that my mind needs to concentrate on
not making the next great queer poetry collection
so…there’s that i guess.

[life]

April 28, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i ache for more time
to go backwards
to have a do-over

but when i write dates
i am far more likely to write in
a future date
one 2-3 days from now

and i wonder if that means i’m forever looking back
or forever looking forward
or that time is a never-ending, non-linear cycle
(or that maybe i shouldn’t think about things/write dates when i’m tired)

April 27, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

a cat on the lap
is worth
fifteen scratches,
one bite,
four cats on the ground,
two heat packs,
a third of your regularly prescribed dose of your antidepressant,
five bite sized chocolate bars,
and all the fur they deposit on your clothing
(i swear, it’s absolutely worth that.)

April 25, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

writing poetry
finding the ‘right’ words
in the shortest amount of time
still watching the entire world pass me by
i take a word
and latch on another
and another and another
until i’m finished

but i never really finish
i’m never quite done
i still feel like this is a first draft
a rehearsal
a practice
and i’ll be able to go back and fix my mistakes
(eventually.)

what if that’s what our ‘heaven’ really is?
getting to fix all the things you think you did ‘wrong’?
and some of us are just more in tune with that
than others?

still don’t believe in a heaven
or hell
still don’t believe in an eternity
hereafter
there’s more out there than what we can see
but a supreme, conscious being,
that is the hardest to believe.

a balance with the universe, is what i believe
a yin and yang of light and dark
(though evil/good do cause me to pause
my thinking for just a second more)
opposites standing together
become whole, not opposing
and i can be whole within myself,
not two completely separate feelings/ideas/whatevers
struggling for supremacy,
i can be a person inside
who is whole
not opposing parts
never coming together
to create a powerful,
albeit rather strange
(and proud in my strangeness)
human person.

(it’s rather funny, to me,
that i really do not identify with much of the human race
but ‘human’ is my favorite designation
to stay outside the gendered binary)

April 24, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

why does my soul
and heart
and body
ache for adventure
when my brain
and my eyes
and my entire psyche
long to nap until i might feel
truly
awake again?

do i really need to rest until i feel up to adventuring again?
(not that many adventures are happening right now, in the time of the ‘rona)
and if that’s the case,
is this the indication that,
even though my days are spent lazing around
doing ‘nothing,’
that ‘nothing’
isn’t as relaxing as i once thought?

i’ve been made aware
that resting while feeling guilt about resting
is not truly resting.
is this why that,
even though i’ve been alive
twenty-seven plus years
i don’t know that i’ve ever felt truly rested?
because, whether i’m performing ten shows a week,
or have literally nothing on my schedule
for the foreseeable future,
i always have these murmurs of
“i should be doing something”
“a nap would be nice right now…”
“i should be doing something”
“maybe i could just close my eyes for a hot second”
“i should be doing something”
“another coffee, maybe?”
“i should be doing something”
“why doesn’t this wake me up like it used to?”
“i should be doing something”

or, i suppose, that exhaustion could simply be the
depression.

whatever it is,
it’s low key,
i know people/friends/acquaintances/family
with invisible illnesses
with constant pain and exhaustion
that does not leave them alone
that requires them take a nap
as soon as the feeling hits them,
that forces their eyes closed
which no amount of coffee or energy drink or caffeine pill or anything
could ever prevent.
mine is not that.
it feels like a quiet undercurrent,
some days i can ignore it so much, it goes away
(usually when i’m busy with other things)
other days i do end up napping on the couch for over an hour.
but it’s a whisper
not a shout
it’s a gentle tug towards sleep
not a full out body slam down onto whatever surface is nearby
it’s the existential exhaustion of being alive
in a world that kind of sucks
and your anxiety never lets go of your awareness of it.

it’s probably the depression.

April 23, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

a vivid dream
can munch up
all my morning plans

my brain stuck
inside
—whatever it was that that was—
as my body slowly adjusts to conscious life,
the mind-parts are still millions of neuron-firings away
trying to hold on to the bright colors
and new characters
and strange places
(and lovely animals)
that my brain just kind of
made up
for the night,
trying to hold on to them
before they
float
away.

and even though i know i’ll be awake eventually,
even though i know that trying to hold on to the vividness
will just make its disappearance all the more devastating,
still i try,
stuck in the dream
secretly hoping to
not
get out of there.