writing about writing

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 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 21, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i don’t know how
people
do it.
write poetry about the big things
falling in love
feeling betrayed
birth
rape
death

i’ve tried and i always feel
i’m missing a piece of the puzzle
like my particular words
cheapen
my majestic moments.

but i’m more than happy
to write odes
to sour patch kids
express a love for
one particular flower
paint a poetic portrait
over the act of writing poetry
i thrive on the little things

(but do people actually want to read poems
about how my morning was?)

April 18, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

wondering
wandering
train stations
(NUMTOTs)
music
in my ears
(but not on)
(or maybe on, but not in)

or would i rather

sit
and
ponder
research
and
file
write
and
write

but right now i must
answer emails
and answer texts
and write a little bit at a time

April 17, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

if i do continue to
poetry
every day
will my poems become
(like my morning pages)
about the act of writing them
(and the frustration when they don’t flow)

…or
could i maybe break through that struggle
and find my voice on the other side
of the struggle and search
for words and subjects
and feel confident in my
abilities
as a
writer.

April 14, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

if i’m going to be completely honest with myself
(and yes, that’s a worthy, but lofty goal,)
i’d say i’m frightened of what’s in my head.

and yet, i’m so curious.

and if i’m going to be completely honest with myself,
the second day is when the goal succeeds or fails
(or maybe it’s the third day
or the fourth
or the fifth
or…)

what i’m trying to say is that i
had such a good idea of what to poem about
yesterday
but today the well feels dry
[did i use it all up yesterday?
did i use it all up in the whole concept of this plan?
should i even be writing these poems with the word
“i”?]

the concept is a whole collections of contemplations
one for each day of each week of each month of this one
year.

perhaps it’ll help me write better
perhaps it’ll show me fortitude and consistency
perhaps i’ll give up after a while
(but i’ll still learn some important lessons along the way)
but what i want to know is:
when will i get to the good stuff,
the tough internal workings,
the contemplations on life and death and the liminal space in-between,
the inter-personal inner-workings of being,
instead of just writing about my plan to write?