I’m not
hello
i’m not a writer
but i’m a fighter
a feeler
i’m healing
living
breathing
i’m giving
taking
i’m a learner
a yearner
i’m fearful
jaded
but i’m hopeful
and i guess that’s all it takes
hello
i’m here to write.
While I have dreams of seeing them in print,
I’m hoarding poems.
Publishing them online scares me.
What if I want to submit them
to that lit mag I read once?
What if someone I know reads them
and sees more than I want them to?
If you fold a piece of paper
one hundred and three times,
it will be the size
of the known universe.
I think I’ve got that many poems
written down and hiding in
notebooks, boxes and jump drives.
If I hoard them all, they’ll
never see the light of day again,
never share my secrets,
never cross an editor’s desk.
I wanted to write a poem about sex.
Because I’m a boy. But it’s not
any more, about that.
I wanted to write a poem about distance.
Because it’s real. And I’ve been there
before. And that’s why
I wanted to write about fear.
And cycles. And habitual inclination
to the unobtainable.
I wanted to write about love.
But we have, and we have not, and too often
we lose.
I wanted to write a novel (laugh here)
so instead, I wrote
this
(pause here)
There’s a beating of wings in cacophonous night, and I’m not sure
if it’s coming or if it’s going or if the trees in the leaves’ shudder are
memories of fixed winters, or recent years, or wooden gears
grinding metal, throwing redyelloworange, whiteandblack sparks
sapping sepia of its magick, or our spirits, or the gods of substance
or if no more these things than the things
cast inside, interrupting, disrupting, unravelling and breaking, fighting
outer gravity with a force, an internal divorce with
myself—just the passing of wings without song, or a bird, to direct.
(pause here)
I wrote this
because it’s you, and its me
and I’m a man and it’s true
that I’ve never wanted
to write anything
more.
–josephallennichols–
I hear she’s from Bosnia –
a refugee of war perhaps
she came here to get away
but you found her
you found her
and I’m sure your hands found her
and your mouth
and your, your…
I hear she’s from Bosnia –
her family leaving terror to come
to the land of the free where
you are so free
to make a terror of your own
you found her
and I found her too
standing by you
and you know what –
she looks just like me
and I know that, that means
she’ll never be free
I hear she’s from Bosnia –
you found her
I found her
maybe someday she’ll find me
and I can tell her your game
so she can finally realize
it’s okay
to quit playing.
Will I get the job? The girl? 50 cents off of my next gas purchase?
Shake the Magic 8 ball, because that’s more acceptable than your phone.
“Ask again later”
They’re going to put a needle in my mouth and
I could talk to you about pain because
I need six fillings and a root canal and
I could talk to you about poverty but
I’m just going to go numb, then try to imagine the beach and
the sound of the waves instead of the sound of a drill and
I could talk to you about having insurance for the first time at 33 but
really I’m grateful, so there’s not much to say and
when this is over I’ll have ’em sign me up for another round of
needles that make me jittery, that make my heart race, because
I’ve been waiting years to take a shot in the mouth that counts for something.
Funny how people become gods
when given a grain of information.
Your future is now in a pretty little package
gifted to these flawless storytellers
who guide it along cliched courses
leading to these guaranteed endings.
Conflicts mapped by memories
create foreshadowed victories
from previous luck-based success,
like footprint diagrams of a dance,
step back, then right to forward
to win [insert desired goal here].
They’ll draw swords, fight another’s battle
for they surely can’t lose, (they’re gods!)
calling forth their infinite wisdom
to write your own story
while leaving out your divine secrets,
and losing wars by ulterior ignorance.
I’ve learned I need to keep my living life
separate from my defense mechanized
fictional storybook fantasies.
For once I let another storyteller on my page
their pseudo-godly ways will change
every word to failure, loss, and pain.
