NPM 2018: Recovered (Day 24)

Recovered
Written April 24, 2018

I sat leisurely
at the keyboard
and typed this out.
I sipped iced tea
in the springtime
and didn't recall
your thoughts
on cherry blossoms
until they were gone.
I sold a painting
and left the state
and had a crisis
and recovered
and didn't tell you
anything.
Maybe this year
I'll stop
writing poems
about you.

Nevermind.

NPM Day 28 {The Pause}

The Pause
April 9, 2017

I envision myself paused, my hands pressed
against praying lips, eyes closed, all senses omitted
except the sound of my heart beating.
It's a sagacious and frequently visited image,
hoping it will lead me somewhere new,
but whether I see my body swaying
mid-song, or crouched under this desk,
I am infinitely alone in such a moment.
The world offers no insight to, nor respite from,
the haunting desire that captures me,
that subtle yet emboldened pain
always just beyond my grasp, feigning
an approach and then fading fast.
And so intrepidly I take pause, always
assuming position in solitude, always hoping
that if I open my eyes, my heartbeat
will be stronger alongside yours.

NPM Day 27 {Roundabout}

This poem used to give me chills. They were sort of good chills, sort of bad chills. When I wrote this over seven years ago, they were my only way of processing one of the biggest fights with a friend I've ever experienced. I honestly can't even remember what the fight was about, but it went on for several months longer than I felt capable of enduring.

All I had were these words. 

And I've avoided this poem over the years, but it doesn't have power over me anymore. 

So here you go.

Roundabout

February 12, 2010

You are the friend of my conveniences,

coffee cups cold with petty sympathies.

You are a walk in the dark,

the translation of my nightmares,

and you lay your hands down on me

like a sacrificial beast into the flames.

You bear the knife in clammy palms,

breathing out my fate like a grudge

that holds on hopelessly.

You are the arrow that misses my heart

a thousand times too many for pity.

You stab me in the back

and apologize. You are so sorry.

Patterns go roundabout, but maybe

you will hit the target next time.

You are the accumulation of ice,

the shivering abandonment of reason.

You stab me in the back

and apologize. You are so sorry.

Patterns go roundabout,

yes is a maybe and maybe means no.

You stab me in the back

and sympathize. You are so sorry

that I am such a sorry sight.

You stab me in the hand

and put the blade in my bloody fingers

and you scream for me.

You say I did it to myself and

you say it's all my fault and

you stab me in the heart and

patronize. You are so sorry

that I don't see it your way.

NPM 2016: Day 30 {A Shameful Event}

The final day of National Poetry Month has arrived. Thank you all for reading my poems, even if they aren't easily understood or if they seem melodramatic. (Some of them are. Oh well.) While I enjoy sharing my poems with others the process is really an internal, reflective one. It gives me a perspective on myself and the person I have been, the writer I have been, over the last 12 months. Sharing that process with you, whoever you are, takes a great deal of vulnerability. Perhaps in years to come I will explain more. I will describe the context of the poem. I'll tell you who I was then and who I've become and how writing said poem changed me. We'll see.

For now, enjoy the final poem.

A Shameful Event
April 30, 2016

It doesn't matter
that it's happened before,
a perpetual frustration
of artistic endeavor,
a shameful event
that we all somehow
succumb to
in unfocused moments.
But I am resolved.
I have arranged
this sacred space
and settled myself
in the middle
of the chaos,
and no matter what
happened before,
and no matter what
happens next,
I will not
under any circumstance
dip my paintbrush in my tea.