Alive?!

I wrote this about a year ago.  I'm choosing to share it now.  I still feel this

but now, I can be honest.   I can tell you.  This is more a spoken work than

a poem, but I need to share here and now. 

      Alive?!

My heart hurts.

It bangs so hard in my chest –

Every day –

 just about all day, the only time I don’t notice is when I’m doing something very physical,  
  like…moving rocks.

I can’t believe I’m not in the hospital.

My heart hurts and bangs so hard it’s as if the whole world can hear and see it pounding there. 

I look sometimes –

but I can’t see it with my seeing eyes. 

But sometimes I can see –

 with those other eyes –

my mind’s eyes –

 pushing my skin, my breasts, my ribs up just a bit –

 I can see it –

 I can hear it –

 beating –

 so loud.

Sometimes I’m surprised I’m heard when I speak.

Sometimes I’m surprised to hear words at all for my heart and my stomach seem to migrate to my throat –

often –

making breathing and speaking a rather labored affair. 

All that banging and constricting takes up so much room.

Will it ever stop? 

Will it lessen?

Or will I just become accustomed to this unusual bodily arrangement of parts?

An alien to my body. 

This body of heartache and grief –

 I am forced to dwell in –

part of,  yet separate.

A loved one said “Perhaps the pain is keeping you here.  Without it you would just float away.”

Perhaps that is right.

Perhaps pain is a friend, waking me up –

 to life. 

For surely, alive is what I feel –

or present at the least –

here and now –

 the colors so loud –

 the scent of everything sweet and foul upon the air –

 and the pain so always present,  keeping me

tethered to now.

Good chance I lost it again.
What is "it"?
"It" is me.
Me on paper.
Me on the screen, pretending to be paper.
That is where I lost it again.

The first time,
It was stolen by man.
This time stupidity took it.
The screen is not paper.
If you want it to last,
it ought to be backed up.

I didn't do that.
I lost it again.
My words.

Oh lamentable day.

The day the computer refused to boot.

Pretentious Poem

Pretentious Poetry,
Pretentious Poems,
Pretentious Poets.
The snake eating
Its own tail.
Some are just myopic.
Peering peripherally,
Well, then its plain as paper.
They don their pretty clothes
- or their not so pretty clothes
Writing words
Attempting to convey
A something.
So sure of their grasp of the language.
And, to what avail?
To impress?
Impress on who, or on what?
We hide behind our words
As others – behind masks.
We profess these to be our Truths.
And confess our depths perceptions.
But is it?
Look closely?
Could it be a decoy?
No really one knows.
And – in the end,
No one cares.
The paper crumbles
- as do we all –
A grave by pauper or prince
Is still a grave.

Haiku

Well my friends this is another sad writing day for me. Actually, it is a sad reading day for you. I wrote a beautiful essay. Only I can't share it with you. It was way too personal. Here's the thing, I wrote for a long time, and when it was done, I read it and knew that was for me. Maybe someday I can share it, but for now, that is my gem. For you I have Haiku:


I wrote an essay
Thinking of you the whole time
Reading my fine words

The Wall

Words are elusive,
Transient beings
Swirling through my mind.
Just when I think I’ve
cornered one,
It slips through the synapses,
Becoming a transparent memory –
Taunting me
Daring my creativity to flow,
An elaborate wall constructed.
Is this
Writer’s Block?

Caged Love

I say, let me go
Don’t hold me
here
against my will

I say, release me
Freedom from behind
stained glass walls
is fuzzy at best

I say, let me fly
Clipped wings
confine me
to earth

I say, raise me up
Praise me
increase my potential
to change the world

I say, give me space
I am strong
I have a voice
Let me use it

If not,
One day
I will escape
And you
will
be
alone

The Monarch

As I sped off down the road,
Rain pelting my windshield
I saw the magnificent creature
Only after it was too late.
As the color on the far wiper blade
Caught my eye
My heart sank,
my mind raced.
Is there an appropriate response
When something like this occurs?
I left it there.
I tried not to see it.
Using the wipers only
When I could no longer see the world.
Not so my very dead hitchhiker.
Orange and black,
Orange and black
Flashing brilliant against the grey.
Each swipe of the mechanical arm,
Shredding the delicate remains.

I struggle not to see it...
Not to think about it...
Not to let it in.

It never happened.