That eight beat slam across the page
It coddles like your sweater hood
To shield you from your fear of age
Predictability feels good

Familiarity's your hutch
So sweet a place to build a bed
Swaddled by your written crutch
To ease the noise inside your head

When the water reaches overhead,
Your lungs can't gasp beyond the dread,
You've broken down, you've cried and bled,
but don't shut down.

When the floor falls 'way beneath your feet,
Your dry mouth has no words to speak,
The rhythm fails, you missed a beat,
but don't shut down.

I coax you from your corner cave,
I drag your mind far from the grave,
And all I had to give, I gave;
Please.
Don't shut down.

Mudslide muscles
Coax me into the couch
The cloud of distant ache
Coursing rivers in my legs below.

I welcome the pain with warm embrace.

Yesterday
I felt well enough to run.

How real are they? These faded dreams
The line between
Anxiety and reality
twists
Like the knife I know
Was entered into me
Found in emails to doctors
I've forgotten I'd written.

I want to write a poem
Because poems are.
Poems talk
Poems throw themselves across the page with all the fierceness of an unhinged toddler
Poems are careful
Poems **** people off
Poems shred the written word and scatters it in rhythm you either love or despise
Poetry is the song you forgot the lyrics to
And the words
And the singer
But not the mood.
I want to be a poem.