Category: poetry

the bog

i have sat in the bog

felt the water turn my skin pink and shrivelled, like a raisin

the mud dripping down my throat and into my stomach

god, it weighs me down

i have sat in the bog

until the peat-moss is caked into my hair

until rock-bottom started to droop under my weight

maybe i deserve it

maybe it’s preventative

maybe i should just close my eyes, and stay here

and feel the time pass

i could pick apart my skin

i could pull out my hair, strand by strand

i could get lost in these parts and never come back

yeah, ‘cause maybe

i wouldn’t hate myself so much

with a different face

or a better heart

if i tried my very best to get it right the first try

tried until there’s nothing else to say

i have sat in the bog and seen my fate

in the leech-infested waters

thrown myself a pity party

forgot to mail out invites

and left the candles on the cake unlit;

it didn’t really work out anyway

i don’t even know how to do that bit

so maybe i will cry myself a river

and the current will keep me company

and that’s something that i will never do wrong

it will carve apologies into my aching arms

until they’re really just bone

and all those words i’ve never said

trace a path forward out along the riverbank

the clay beneath my fingertips

draw it out like the branching path of an ancient tree

burnt and flawed and broken

and still reaching for the sun

I tend to really ruminate on things, and wrote this at a time when I was: you guessed it! Ruminating! Um, yeah, I actually really like how this piece turned out, I think it’s really cool.

open wound

i. i talk too much i think / let the words spill like quicksand from my tongue / it’s gonna be my undoing / this sea of words i swim upon / but these days, it’s feeling more like drowning / half a million things to do / but i lie on the surface / glazed over and drifting / i drive through the rain / check my blind spots, but i’m never quite / ready to go through / so i sit there psychoanalyzing until my tongue is sore / and my fragile body is an open wound / and i don’t know how to settle this score / cause i’ve burned all my bridges / or was that just a dream / i think i talk too much / leave all my secrets out on by the curb / i think i build myself up, like the castles of yore / but it’s just a trick of of the light, some drug-store contour / (the cheapest i could find) / i try too hard, i think / as i wash it off at night / and stare down a stranger in the smudged-up bathroom mirror 

Part 1/3 of a suite of poems.

10 reasons i can’t write poetry

  1. i’ve never had a natural gift for this. the words, yeah, they never came easy. they stumbled off my tongue onto the page and i hate the way they look, i hate everything i say. i wasn’t born for this. everything i know i had to learn, bit by bit, intuition gagged and blindfolded somewhere deep in my subconscious.
  2. but the only thing i hate more than myself these days is the people who read the wretched birds i make. who love them. who really, really try. they are just like me, doomed from the start. to trip and fall and ruin what little life they had. we won’t make it far.
  3. i can’t sleep at night, these days. just lie awake, churning. everything seems scarier in the dark. like university, like working, like selling off my dreams for 11.45. there’s no good way out of this, i think, with deep circles underneath my eyes.
  4. i can’t sit in my head too long without scaring my thoughts off. i never know, where the monsters hide these days. i never know, what to do when they come out of hiding, tails between their legs. what to say.
  5. the dreams that seemed so bright two years ago, they are burnt down in my palms like matchsticks. call it depression; or call it growing up. it is what it is. i am too tired to string these sentences together, and yet somehow still i can’t fucking quit.
  6. maybe i like the attention. maybe i’m five years old and burning, and maybe i don’t know what’s true anymore. what the hell is wrong with me. it’s spinning and blurred-out in some kind of sleep-deprived haze. everything i’ve worked for, what has it come to? it’s all dust in the wind these days.
  7. and baby, baby girl, i am not ready for all these grown-up things i’ve lusted after my whole life. i am gone before i’ve left the gate.
  8. i’ll get through it. i have to. but i’ll tear up some relationships along the way. call it collateral. call it irrelevant. hope you’ll find a way to forgive me for every crash-and-burn in the parking lot, every bruise on my knees. when i trip and fall, i don’t want to take anyone down with me.
  9. my throat aches and my eyes are fuzzy. i haven’t been feeling well of late. and they say depression is just another sickness, but it’s one that might never go away.  even though i did everything i should. i went to therapy, i poured my heart out on the floor. i tried every pill the doctor had to offer, and i still feel like shit. i don’t want to be miserable for the rest of my days.
  10. i haven’t been sleeping well of late. even though sleeping is all i want to do these days, close my eyes and blot out the stars. and never write another word again.

I wrote this while dealing with some pretty bad depression. I don’t know what to say–winter is rough, man. There are good and bad days.

wolf-skins

had a dream last night

about a little girl

with a good family, and a pretty

apartment in the city

i can’t remember what she looked like

but i know that she was kind, and sweet

and oh-so-naive

had a dream last night there were wolves at her door

and no one saw the warning signs

but i did

i was strong enough to catch them

and good enough to try

so she wouldn’t ever have to spin around in darkness

as they closed in around her

wondering if she was dreaming

or just losing her mind

so i fought all the wolves with my bare hands

threw them in a freezer, to never be thawed

and passed out on the floor, the blood freezing in my veins

i don’t want to die like i’m one of them

i want to be light, and weightless

i want to drift for just a little bit

longer

so i grit my teeth

i crawled out along the frozen ground

i wrestled my way through corpses

and i closed the door for good

told her it was safe now

she’d never know this aching worry

a bitter thing with teeth

and i don’t know what

what it would be like

to be carefree, and happy

thought i was poison, once you really get to know me

so i kissed her head

woke up to pouring rain

and swaying trees

alone in my bedroom with no one else to save

wanted to weep so hard that my pillow

grew a garden of flowers, mostly weeds

wanted to find that girl

and apologize for things i didn’t do

and when i looked out the door

all i could see was wolf-skins

and overgrown fescue

I really did have a dream like this, and I’m still not totally over it.

summer (2023)

I’ll be older, and wiser, a year from now or so 

I’ll cut my hair short

And feel the cool breeze

I’ll look out the window

And for once, I’ll be at peace

I’ll get my license

I’ll drive real carefully

When I pick you up from work and get the groceries

I’ll be your husband and your wife

Whatever you want, really

And we’ll go to the Rocky Mountains

We’ll run into the sea

We’ll hold hands underneath the stars

And it’ll feel like home to me

And maybe I’m irresponsible

But I’ll take it over misery

I’ll take every scrap of pity

I’ll do what I have to do

So we’ll swim in the frozen lakes at midnight

And we’ll climb up those frozen mountains

If we want to, or maybe we won’t

We’ll pick flowers

And get ice cream on the side of the road

I’ll try not to think about it

Like I always do

About headstones and eulogies

And rotting to the core

I’ll just cut my hair short

And I’ll take you to the shore

This is really a song, but I liked the lyrics enough to post here.