February 19, 2025

feeling like i’m riding a roller coaster
but i have to physically get myself
up
up
up
up
the chain of every hill
pulling
and grinding the gears
until gravity and physics finally take over
and i can let myself go
but then i’m going
and going
and going too fast
and where i once had
so much
too much
control
i’m now hands off
letting it take me
where it wants

and i didn’t even create this roller coaster
i don’t know what it has in store for me
i can only see a few moments in front of me
and for me
who saw
the whole hill i was pulling myself up
[granted, the hill looked
even larger
even longer — i never saw
the drop coming]
being unable to predict
when the next turn
or loop
or tunnel
will happen
as it just seems to pick up
more and more speed
faster
and faster
is a bit too much for me,
but i’ve been on this roller coaster for a while now
and i know
there’s probably another hill coming
i’ll have to pull myself
up
up
up
and
along…

[but what if there’s not
what if
what if
what if this part of the ride
just keeps going
faster
speedier
wilder
out of control
until it’s too fast
too much momentum
for the track
and i rocket off?

would i die?

or would i land somewhere off of this preconceived track
when i can have some control
over direction
and height
and maybe even
not
be on a roller coaster at all?]

January 24, 2025

once again i’m
writing in my bed while i
feel a little dread from
the world around me but
my cat is purring and
my dog is sighing and
my kip is working and
i suppose i’ll give tomorrow a go

January 16, 2025

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?]

January 4, 2025

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]

December 2, 2024

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?]

November 22, 2024

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

November 10, 2024

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

November 3, 2024

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