So…
What makes this time different?
It doesn’t have to be different. I just have to keep going.
So…
What makes this time different?
It doesn’t have to be different. I just have to keep going.
and just like that, winter is here.
I know. A little late, but it is fine. The buildup to this year has been intense, but here we are. Everyone keeps saying, “it has to get better,” but does it?
This poem is not about you
This poem is about running on the beach
Splashing in the surf, and kicking up sand
The wind is blowing and it is just about to rain
Laughing and breathing harder then it ever thought it could
This poem is not about you
This poem is about smiling for no reason
This poem is singing at the top its lungs
This poem does not care about rejection
This poem threw out all its regrets like an abandoned toothbrush
This poem is not about who was right and who was wrong
Because
This poem is not about you
This poem is running into the future, arms pumping, lungs exploding
Mind blowing euphoria
This poem has it’s head is in the clouds
This poem is throwing shells as far into the sea as it can
This poem is watching the sun set and the surf roll in
This poem doesn’t care if you please read and tell it what you think
Because
What the fuck do you know about poetry anyway?
This poem is not about you
This poem is not about loss and failure
This poem is not stopping at set backs and closed doors
This poem is not waiting for a text
This poem cut all its hair off and doesn’t care if anyone likes it
This poem does not even want to rhyme
This poem is watching the stars come out like spinning and swirling diamonds
This poem is letting the past melt away
This poems cup is running over with joy beyond understanding
This poem is about that high you feel when time stops and you stop trying to get ahead
So
you won’t get it
Because
This poem is not about you
This poem is not running away This poem is running into the future
Not looking back
No regrets
And
No hoped for, never made promises
Because
This poem is not about you
This poem is not about fear and self loathing
This poem is not asking your permission
This poem is doesn’t care about your opinion
This poem is sticking its head out the window on the way home
This poem refuses to be silent
This poem is getting carried away
This poem is howling at the moon
This poem is not about you
This poem is not about you
This poem is not about you
This poem is not about you
You thought you were funny, but you weren’t
The apology was left in messages as unsent draft
I just wanted to say hi
Thinking of you, but then apon remembering everything that went wrong, and everything that could never have gone right
All the reasons everything went wrong
Maybe it’s just better unsaid
Especially since nothing has changed for the better, and you are probably living happily ever after
That is what other people do right?
Go to school
Get a job
Get married
Live happily ever after
Go on vacations
All that stuff that never happened to me
Because I did all the things I do
So maybe this apology is just one more bad idea
One more example of poor impulse control
I’d mess it up anyway
It’s too late for my poor husbands, but let me spare you some of their grief, because in their search for that elusive metaphor, poets can be somewhat “eccentric.”
There will good and bad and everything there will be. That is what it is. So you have been warned!
She lined her windows with cobalt glasses, wine bottles and sometimes even glass birds. She was the the only poet I had ever known, so part of me thought this was how it had to be done, until of course she started getting cats, and they disagreed. They were right of course. That is also when I knew, poets need cats, not blue glass.
It’s not what you think
or maybe it is, if you are thinking that tomorrow will come even if you are not there to see
did you know birds can sleep while flying over the sea for months at a time
that makes sense
because I have been sleepwalking through my life for years
I partly wish I had kept a diary during for 2020, but I didn’t. So that is that. I am partly glad I didn’t write about it. It was an angry year and I was just as angry as everyone else. I would kind of like to forget that part. I got sucked into the rhetoric and fear and the lethargy of that lost year as much as anyone. Any journaling I would have done would have turned into me grumbling about everything everyone else was grumbling about, and there was already too much of that out there. There were points in the year when it really felt like this could be it for us, the end of humanity. We couldn’t even be bothered to wear a mask for 10 minutes in a store to protect our fellow man from contracting a deadly disease. I really shouldn’t be talking about it like it is over. The issues of 2020 are not over. The vaccines have just begun to be administered. How many of us will get them? And honestly the pandemic was just the tip of the iceberg. The rhetoric and hate that had, if we are honest, always been here, and we still do. So, rest in peace 2020. It was not your fault.