happy birthday
35- Another year,
and I am getting hazier all the while.
the blurriness at the edge of my brain is slowly expanding like cotton batting to dull the cutting edges of my consciousness
rending it ineffective, laughable, pathetic, loathsome,
not what was written on the tin
I wonder if, as a child, no one had ever told me that I was meant to be something spectacular
that I was meant to be ABLE, to ACCOMPLISH, to IMPRESS
'g I f T e D'
without that expectation, without that heartbreak,
I wonder if this state of affairs would bother me at all.
maybe i could embrace this life where i can't manage laundry or doing dishes or leaving the house or eating regularly or bathing or never going to college or struggling to pay bills or worrying about homelessness or being alone
that must be it. yes, that must be it.
last night
i had a dream last night that you came through the door
familiar as always, warm and friendly and laughing
and i was so glad to see you.
you saw me, smiled, we embraced
it was such a nice dream,
but the ending was of course that i woke up content
wanting to roll over and see you
i was greeted by empty space
a gap, a scar. eleven years you grew there, next to me
i keep thinking that time will make it hurt less,
but i guess i have phantom limb and am still processing
that you don’t love me anymore.
i’m sad about the old world
years ago, hiding from the summer heat in a house owned by an awful woman
i curled up in my bed with a laptop, hiding from the light of the day,
my fingers tapping out some nonsense or another on a blogger post
a picture of a house covered in kudzu, fleeting thoughts of my upbringing and my parents’ divorce
the earth was so red, there was so much mica
i spoke to meedal, to deedar, to tasni suunsan
all of that is gone now, rotted away like the body of that bird in the bucket of water
rendered to nothingness, then cast away onto the earth.
if i close my eyes, i can almost smell the wonderful dark rotting leaves.
Mike Habeck likes this.
i get it
i get it, the reason people tie notes to balloons and send them into the sky
these poems are a bit like that for me-
words on a piece of paper that doesn’t exist, to be read by people who don’t exist
the thought of them in their bottle rising into the sky, though…
that theoretically visible glimmer in the distance, so easy to miss
a man adrift in the ocean with a black lifesaver
a whisper lost in a storm
i am so tiny
but i am here.
Mike Habeck likes this.
35
i’ll be 35 next week. i have limited food in the house, my brain is buckling under the weight of stress of existing, my bank account boasts a matching amount of pennies (one for each year i have been alive).
it’s not enough to sustain me.
completely empty
i always loved the idea and feel of a new journal or sketchbook
crisp white pages, only maybe lines to guide what will come in the future
i would dream of what could appear there, what adventures the covers would contain
but then get lost in the fear of being inadequate, not the hero for that particular quest
mediocre, not enough, half-assed, a waste of paper
i have so many empty books.
Mike Habeck likes this.
waterbird
in reply to waterbird • •waterbird tagged waterbird's status with #poems
waterbird
2025-03-15 18:05:35
waterbird
in reply to waterbird • •waterbird tagged waterbird's status with #poetry
waterbird
2025-03-15 18:05:35