I write the same poem over and over again and I always write it with
the same words again and again. I try to explain the feelings that the
poem is an attempt to express, in fact I have hours worth of things to
say about those feelings, but it always falls flat on the ears of my
audience. They feel it is like a dream they didn't have and that those
feelings are not interesting in and of themselves. yet, then, the
poem, in its first iteration or its ninetieth, furnishes their
imaginations right away and communicates what it would have taken me
hours to say. this is not a novel observation, about the strange
efficiency of abstraction, but it is captivating nonetheless. The
following, is that poem.
sitting by the fledgling tree she tells me about the day she had and i
cant help but not listen, she tells me about the day she had and i
tell her about a movie neither of us have seen and we reminisce about
when we went to see it, nothing catches us off guard when the leaves
and moss grow over(Gross) and the ground swallows us up, but we keep
going at it, and i cant finish a thought no matter how i speak to
her(Such a shame), i'm given a breath to breathe and the world is
still but it's just me not climbing that fence(read: jumping down onto
that roof) when i know i wont be able to again.
i leapt the hedge back when the leaves were still(Not going anywhere)
so i wonder where you go when you close that gate and tell me to
clamber back, but it's not my business to know now is it(Or so i'm
told.) the thorns find purchase in my skin and i don't remember if you
laughed as you looked me up and down. i'd be beside myself(How
hurtful,) but most of the time you're right.
when the ground grew over us the earth and soil felt like skin and
bone and i found the earliest moments captivating — the closer we
leaned in the easier it was to find the place to spit.
we're all adults here so waiting doesn't do you any harm, and you said
that you'll live until my blood is complicated into dirt. (ugh) i saw
the lights go out and the wheels unbolted. the veins of machinery can
mend, but i get tired of comparing myself to computers. it's always
one more metaphor (read: abstraction) away from making sense.
