monday tuesday

a truly monday sort
of tuesday.

i’ve covered my desk
in a veritable townscape
of paper, envelope, post-it pile
abodes:

missing their rooves,
lying in wait
for my workday whirlwind

 of wednesday.

mania

manic up morning

i try poems

& delete

poem

& delete

morose sounds trite

with so much sun outside

& my poems

today have

that aa glint

in their eyes

of sorry

but it’s sorry

they aren’t back

in those good ol’ days

& not sorry

for what shit

they dragged

so many selves through

it’s sorry i’m

reminiscing

with this crowd

of pen & paper

not

actually drowning

& too sick

to swim

“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.”

- Vincent Van Gogh

happy others day

this wasn't meant to be about yesterday,
about how mother’s day digs deeper
every year i still don’t have kids.

lonely stabs literal behind my sternum
makes breathing suddenly impossible.
no matter how much i fake cough
i can’t dam eye wells, or silence sniffles.

i excuse myself from rooms, slump
back to back with bathroom doors.
sneak sobs, wait in front of mirrors
until eyes don’t look so red.

back out, re-busy myself with keeping
surfaces calm despite the turbulent
brewing of some soul-tempest.

yes, everything in its own time, sure.
but i’m allowed to be weary of
ticking days with tearfilled pillows,
or these haunting bone-aches
of old, old dreams.

filmnoise grey

weather is still
filmnoise grey
pre and post rain.

half-reclined in
a breaking
ikea office chair

this minute
is liplicked
with fingers
nitpicking keys

trying to catch
poem edges.

waiting for a
story idea
to land in my lap

like a stack of
junkmail or these
earbuds that keep

falling out.