just Trying
in the dark of day
someone bleats an answer
we bark in disappointment
the globe turns anyway
in the dark of day
someone bleats an answer
we bark in disappointment
the globe turns anyway
i first saw you
in the cold protvino lab
with your cathode-ray tubes tied up way out of your face
watching from afar
i observed the atoms you smashed
and the resultant particles
ephemeral and transitional
all recorded on my clipboard
hungry to see you running again
when they first let me near you
all my training dropped like necrotic skin
dead dead weight
sheaf of research papers
scattering on sterile sheet-concrete
my head was barely in for a second
when i saw your real face
a blue flash
brighter than a thousand suns
tearing through my occipital lobe
immediately spilling onto the floor
was my evidence that the dosage was fatal
the nausea is purportedly immediate
proton currents are supposedly sour
strangely enough, you didn’t hurt at all
There’s a flight I booked to New York
that I cannot bring myself to cancel
It’s really embarrassing to admit
but I’ll let you in on a secret:
I’ve never been on a plane before
Something about that particular inexperience
especially makes me feel like a child
stunted, arrested in development
I’ll tell you this, too, while we’re on the subject
I have an intense fear of powerlessness
so I guess I cannot stand the thought
of entrusting my fate in something manmade
My plans have since changed but
for the time being, there is still a seat
for me on a plane headed to New York
and while I still hold that ticket
I can tell myself I control that one thing
I wish it hadn’t happened to me
because it wasn’t supposed to happen to me
I didn’t need to be there
involved
But when she called for help
I took the steps two at a time
I wish it hadn’t happened to us
because it wasn’t supposed to happen to us
I wish she would leave him
but not how he tried to leave her
twice
But it happened
and I can’t forget it
The stairs and the carpet
stains on the hallway wall
busted and torn ligaments in a hand I’ll never hold again
I wish it weren’t real
I wish I could forget about it
but most of all
I wish she would talk to me again
Every time I go to any shooting range, attempting
to learn the skills to protect myself, a new instructor
puts a bullet in my flesh with a different excuse.
At best they are not skilled with this type of gun,
this shooting range is underfunded, set up poorly,
muzzle flagged by accident, wrong place, wrong time.
At worst they say I’m easy to mistake, uncanny face,
for a ballistic dummy. The wound channels appear
nearly real, a perfect study, ripe for clinical notes.
Those instructors are the ones to tell me to stand stoic,
let them probe my injuries, might as well, the damage
is already done. And who will listen to a polyurethane
mold of a human when it pleads you’re making it worse.
Forgive me
I do not
remember
it fully
right now–
you never
used it
first workshop
–but apparently
it’s vital
not even a little archaic
not even slightly cold
Each pen stroke
forms a pigmented figure
obscure characters
both in letter and image.
Scratched, scrawled,
sprawling and spidery
sinisterly sibilant.
My madness is laid bare
an executioner’s arcing axe-strike
severing mind and memory
from flesh and bone vessel.
These words-a manifesto-
scribbled on newspaper edges,
bar napkins, and envelope backs
incoherent and indecipherable
were they worth it?
in this moment
what hurts the most
is that you planned it
prepared yourself
to look me in the eye
calmly
patiently
fixedly
and break my heart
in a way it can never be unbroken
in a way that makes me question
Everything
i thought you were
I work for a figure
Unknowing of my existence
Hours of my week
dictated by a concept
that someone had to make
brick and mortar
I live for beautiful words
The kind that flow
like a river from my soul
The kind that inspire
the timid young writer
I feel so constrained
by that which I must do
and I cannot help but wonder
what more there may be
because for me this thing
seems never-ending,
ever-tightening
A smile like a sunbeam shining light
on a man who’s almost lost himself.
A perfectly timed text to distract you
from the negative spaces closing in.
A random invitation like an ethereal hand
hoisting you up from the latest rock bottom.
A poignant song to reconnect you
with the parts of yourself
that still want to live.
Today, I’m thinking about the people
who didn’t have any of those things
in the final battle.
How two sides of forever exist
in a moment flicked like a switch.
How studies show men are far less likely
to seek help for the issues they struggle with.
How fear of appearing weak or unstable
cracks the very foundations they’re built upon.
How every statistic
is somebody’s tragedy.
How June, among other things,
is also Male Mental Health Awareness Month
and has been called so for three decades
so tell me why I just heard about it for the first time.
Why do these conversations remain so difficult
despite the mountains of data at our disposal?
Do the words ‘suicide awareness’ not beg
some degree of contemplation?
A Facebook post floats across my feed:
Sorry I’ve been out of touch lately.
Going through divorce.
I’m crying in the workplace locker room
where anybody can see
because I don’t want to tell people I’m fine anymore.
I’m writing this poem
as much to myself
as I am to everybody else.
Poetry for failures
because someone out there
feels the exact same ways that I do
except they have a handle of liquor in their gut
and a loaded gun in their lap.
So please,
please reach out if you feel the walls are closing in–
they’re easier to push back if we work in numbers.
Or if you’re in a stable place,
smile at someone, send a random text,
extend an invitation, share your favorite songs.
Find a way to fight
wherever you’re at on the battlefield
especially if you’re in a spot
where the ranks are breaking.
And maybe it’s there
that I discover
I have yet more to learn.
That there are things
I still get wrong
in my own mind.
This hasn’t been poetry for failures.
It’s actually poetry for fighters.
Fighters
who maybe haven’t found their successes yet
who just need another fighter beside them to say
I want to see you tomorrow
to give them that gentle nudge
to make it through one more day.
I want to see you tomorrow
because you light up every room you’re in.
I want to see you tomorrow
because the journey does get easier
no matter how impossible that may seem right now.
I want to see you tomorrow
because the world
is so much better
with you still here
fighting side-by-side
with all the rest of us.
