Servant body

Always

Sacrificing

Bruised, scratched, bitten and burned

Yet you never stop serving me

Body

Winter Humidity

Nearly December

Moist air settles in the dark

Lingers through morning

Grandma

I want to write a poem

About how you seem so small

How I think I could pick you up 

And carry you across the house

Much faster than you could walk

Leaning into me

With a limp I never noticed before

–

I want to write a poem

About how I wanted to interview you

Before I missed my chance

Before you had passed

But as you asked

Who was here

Over and over again

I realized

It was already too late for that

–

I want to write a poem

About how you seem like you’re in a box

Cut off from the rest of us

In a separate existence

Trying to hold on to the world

We’re sharing without you

–

I wanted to write a poem about you

But nothing rhymes with the way I feel

What I thought I’d be at 23

I used to have big dreams

For when I was twenty-three 

I’d hold a position  of high esteem

I’d be respectably scholarly

I’d  be a queen of the art scene

I’d be roadtripping free

I’d be spiritually serene

I’d make  them all see

But five years from eighteen

And I’m still just me

Strangled Morning

I try to hold on

to the rays of sunlight

Coming at me sideways.

Gripping

With grubby fingers

At its purity.

My slow

Peaceful

Delicate

Morning 

I choke to death

in my haste 

To make it last

Just a minute longer

Just a second longer

Just a moment longer.

I scare away

It’s blissfull lightness

With my urgent

Pleading

Misplaced

Intensity.

Anguish isn’t in an exclusive relationship with you

You think you’re the all alone, kid

You think you’re the only one

Well don’t kid yourself, kid

We’ve all thought we were done

–

So don’t try to tell me, bud

That I don’t know what it’s like

I’ve felt the icy dullness of existing too, bud

And I’m beginning to think that’s just life

–

I know you’ve made mistakes, pal

And because of me other people know too

Maybe I haven’t been such a good pal to you, pal

But what I said was true

–

I can see you’re trying to fix it, Xxxx

And honestly, I commend you

But I’m not going to forgive and forget, Xxxx

Because no one gets to start over new

Sleep uncycled

Endless

Conversation

Awake into morning

Brings closed eyes into new hours

Midday

Take time to slow down

Five minutes to meditate

Then begin again

My Mess

Tupper ware on tables

Cat hair on counter tops

Leaves strewn across the floor

–

Cannister without labels 

Unidentified drips and drops

An overflowing junk drawer

–

As smoky as a fable

A string of chores that never stops

My home will be messy forevermore

By Myself

When did isolation become a bad word?

Why does alone have to mean lonely?

Who decided it was sad to be by yourself

What’s so wrong about being your one and only?

–

I want to know myself purely

I want to embrace myself wholly

I want to turn myself inside out 

And view myself solely

–

I don’t want to see myself only by my reflections in others

I must look inside myself to know what it’s like to truly be me