rest
I used to wake up at noon on sundays
and sink into the comforter,
guilt on
my stomach
These days I wake up at noon on sundays
and wiggle my toes
pull the comforter up
to my ears
Sometimes I even
fluff my pillows
and line them all up
in a row
I lay under the trees
By the mucky water
My brain running a marathon,
There’s things in life
That we don’t necessarily choose
But it’s part of who we are
It’s a feeling deep down
That we can’t shake
Like being attracted to the same gender
Or not liking tomatoes
Or only liking your volume on an even number
Yes, these things are all over the spectrum
But I’m using these examples
Because this is how I would talk to my friends
So this poem might not be classy
But hopefully it will feel like
You’re talking to a friend.
Society creates expectations
Or traditions that have been going on
For a long, long time
For the past few years
I’ve tried to break these expectations
And show people that their life,
Their reality,
Is created by them.
For me personally,
I don’t want to get “government married”
Yes, it has benefits and whatever
But it’s just not for me,
I can’t explain all the reasons why.
I don’t want to give birth,
I see posts that are like
“It’s okay to not want kids”
I want kids, I just don’t want to give birth.
I don’t think there’s just one love of your life
I think there’s several
Some stronger than others
These are just a few weird things
About me.
But I’m letting this out because,
Being different or weird
Or whatever you want to say
Can be hard.
I could be madly in love with someone
But they want someone who will carry their kids
Because society made that some kind of milestone.
I could like the same sex
And someone out there will want to kill me for it.
I don’t know where I’m going with this,
Expect to say,
Fuck the expectations,
Live however you see fit
And don’t give up.
What can pierce the soul
and rend the spirit
like swallowed glass?
Acts of evil, sharp
arrows of hate.
Blustery nature need not find
the door open wide.
Within you the shield
to blunt the pain
pierce through tragedy
send sorrow packing.
With soldiery posture
black crows of your spirit
create a ruckus
to rout it all out.
Bone up on passion, wisdom
acts of justice and love.
Weave a thick armor
your soul won’t be bombed.
-Sue Neufarth Howard
what happened to that connection?
Was it a spark
destined to explode
only the one time,
like a supernova mistake
wiping a star out of existence
with all of my lingering attractions
jettisoned into space?
What was the catalyst,
the chemical reaction
that wrote this fission
into the chambers of my heart?
Not that I want to sit here
and say that I own you
because of the one time
when you thought you saw something
in me.
I would hate for these feelings adrift
to become meteors and comets
cratering your world
(for those can be the seeds
of the toxic masculinity
I’m trying so hard to avoid)
because whatever your truth is,
should always be respected,
but I’m still tied to all these pieces
blasted apart.
Because pain and heartbreak know no limits,
no age or race
or sexual orientation
or male or female
or the whole spectrum between.
And no demographic
is immune
to the possibility
of becoming
a cruel human being
Carelessness, even when innocent,
shatters
more hearts than anything else.
Count mine
as another fading victim tonight,
not that I’m trying to call you cruel,
it’s just…
if heartbreak was our destiny
why did I have to find out
through silence?
Why can’t things go back to being the same?
Where am I supposed to go
with all these fractured feelings?
I promise I want to leave you be,
I just need something to go off of
for closure,
even if it’s just the admission
of a drunken misjudgment
or a perceived flaw in me
that I just need pointed out.
I just need
something… something…
anything…
to hold on to,
to learn from.
Please…
Our hair grew
And grew
Clogged one drain
And then another
There was time
To pour the poison
Little by little
And loosen the clumps
Of quarantine.
When I have claimed nature, its beauty will have gone up with the rain. All the
things that the senses encounter, they force to assimilate, with
the force of my existence and their whims. Everything
is pantheistic. Language is
Going up with the rain. Sound is collapsing. Beauty is
lost with the wind going sideways. I am the
benefactor. Giving beauty and grief uncalled for. I am
some perverse cyclical argument; illogical but pragmatic. My soul will be colder, when I have claimed nature.
