half-formed poems
catastrophizing stuck in my head
until i think i’ll burst if i don’t
say
something
and then it’s there stuck in my throat
when i remember
actual
catastrophes
all while i’m too tired to sleep
and too sad to cry
and everything feels like a clock ticking down
down
down
but to what
inevitable
terror?
[or is this simply life in late-stage capitalism/climate crisis disaster?]
i’m ecstatic
i’m scared
i’m electrified
i’m anxious
i’m invigorated
i’m apprehensive
i’m defensive
i’m meditative
i’m happy?
[maybe?]
i’m existential
i’m whatever
i’m apoplectic
i’m in shock
i’m winding down
i’m revving up
i’m lost
i’m found
i’m starting now
i’ve gone through so much
i want
i want
i need
i yearn
i spin yarn after yarn after yarn
but i never seem to learn
that it’s all part of the human condition —
there isn’t one affliction or emotion
better or worse than the others
when you look at one whole life lived
[and you’re not even near the end
as far as makes sense — why are you always
wrapping up your life in your head
to make the ending
an end
rather than a beginning
of a new era]
[you do you,
but also,
there’s more left of you
than you seem to act like
you
have
left]
characterizing my own self
pathologizing
my past
my future
but never my present
because my present is too overthought
to be anything but
half a moment in the past
or a half a worry
about the future
it is only the second day
of the last month of the year
and not even winter
quite yet
and yet
the air has already started to taste stale
and my drive for surviving
ebbing away every minute
and i can’t see how
i’ll get through
next year
[was my premonition
as an angsty teen
just delayed by a couple of decades?]
i think
i was enamored
in the myth of celebrity
that i wanted the concept of me
as an artist
more than i wanted
to make the art
i could make
and now that i’ve turned my whole perspective upside down
and realized that celebrity might be a little [lot] too much for me
i’m so lost in terms of what kind of art i’d want to make
but the art still flows through my blood
and makes a home in my bones,
but do i treat celebrity like a goal
or a disease i’m to avoid?
or
[more likely than not]
do i try to concentrate on my art
and turn my head away from all celebrity
good
and bad
and just live in the art
that’s in my head/heart/body/soul/me
are these truly my only two states?
so invigorated
because of immediate trauma
and helping my community
and working so well
in crisis
and
depressed and sullen and scared
and just hunkering down
for nap after sleep after nap
until i don’t know where the years went?
i want something
in
between
jazz
big
full
jazz
sweet
funky
jazz
reminds me of nola
reminds me of halloween
reminds me of the 1920’s
reminds me of phryne fisher
reminds me of a time and a place and a storyline
when, maybe, i’d have wanted to be alive
i keep having
a day or two
of respite
from my utter desolate sadness
that makes me think that
maybe
maybe
maybe
it’s over
maybe
maybe
maybe
i got through it
maybe
maybe
maybe
i can actually
do this thing called
life
but then it comes back
and
i’m so damn sad
i keep having ideas for poems
and then leaning away from them
i think i’d like to hibernate
until spring comes
but what if spring
and summer
and early fall
all continue like this—
terrible news
no end to covid in sight
[though people try as they might
to ignore all the facts and findings]
death
and destruction
and feeling hopeless and helpless to stop it
unrelenting
unrelenting
i feel like i need a hibernation
until my next
life
also, did i write better poetry
when i wasn’t so sad
and frustrated
literally
all of the
time?
kipventures 