To sing sonnets about the sun
I can’t.
My sentences have been chopped
Into stanzas into phrases into statements
Until there only is.
I think there can be
Beauty in bluntness
Imagination in reality
If my lived experience
Is scholarship
Then I create dissertations
With every
Enjambed
Line.
That you are slowly responsible for the sisters who can’t speak
Remember
That in silence you sleep
You sit
And settle with someone sliding past you
Remember that the world keeps spinning and circles
And you are really responsible for you
Live in the present and likely
Lead a life that’s lonely
Looking for and leading with tasks
That limit you lowly in the present
Remember that the world keeps spinning and circles
And you fear for the future
Fear in the future
Focus fondly on the far
Forgetting the present
While you’re supposed to stay present
And the world keeps spinning
And you’re running in circles
Until you run out of breath
Periodically pre-occupied by the prevalence of prose
I sometimes wonder if anyone knows
The pain that pervades
When you passively pack
Proper nouns and proper sounds
On poor poets back
Ask her to think preemptively about
Her principals participles
Her tempo her time
Her reality her fantasy her mind
And present it poetically in
Just 5 lines
There are times when I have to force myself
Not to taste the sound of abandoned thoughts.
Distractions that distort creative wealth
Sometimes keep newness from changing to rot.
I remember when I was able to
Keep the words changing and stable because
Bumps that come with the world were ones I knew.
I wish the poem was done when I was,
And not after my fingers squirmed to find
Delete, eraser, the ability
To seek solace while striking through my
Careful meaning etched with a pen that sees.
I am counting all the lines I wrote in,
Hoping I can find an answer within.
Is my breathing scholarship
Are my lips unceasing
Words tumbling out
A sign of freedom
Is my dancing an act of protest
My walking an act of rebellion
My sitting a sign of silence
Is my listening an act of cunning
My stress a sign of weakness
My hands a signal for attack
Beginning each piece again and again
Hoping that I will blend into another
Invisible
Feeling bad for talking
Thinking you’ll hear me
Head down
While a backpack pushes
Arms numb with the weight
Of work
Unread books
Deodorant stains
Staring at the floor
Dodging gum
Out in the rain
Sprinkles crinkling hair
Too much spit in tubes
In the midst of chapped lips
Playing the oboe in class
The teacher says
Put your shoulders back.
