What tends to happen with many a poem is
You hop in, then land up somewhere else
Like driving to Texas and landing in Maine Or
Going to India but ending up in the Caribbean

And it’s not nonsensical
Certainly not,
The poet is very much as sane as
You or me

But rather,
That walking or jogging at a
Steady pace as you’d do in a novel
Or essay or racing through a
Movie The poet instead likes to hop and skip and
Jump and race and dance and
Twirl and roll and fly

So much so that those whose minds would rather
Stick to a steady pace
Are absolutely ******* in knots

In this case,
One of two things may occur
Some may scratch their heads and give up, deeming poetry “not their thing”
While others,
May read the poem in bits,
At their own pace,
Maintaining a slow and steady while acknowledging and appreciating and analyzing the hops and leaps and twirls-
They are like detectives,
Tracing the possible routes through which the poet may have traversed

Coming up with theories,
And although a theory may or may not be accurate...


We don’t know how humans evolved
But we appreciate it all the same

I dropped red paint
It got on my black pants
And my black shoes
And my black hair

I touched blue paint
It got on my brown arm
And brown nose
And brown cheek

I plopped yellow paint
On my pink lips
And pink nails
And pink phone

I lathered black paint
Made of yellow,
Blue,
And red paint
On my white soul

Now,
I have color

Truth be told,
I’d really rather not
Get up off this rug that hasn’t been vacuumed in weeks
Crumbs, pastel, who know what little grimy gritty nothings have burrowed into the soft curls
Why must I remain pressed down like this?
Why must I give up, unable to push-up against the weight of
College, future, life choices
Yet, it is not even the push up that I struggle against
No, my current roadblock
Is miles away
The prerequisite of a prerequisite
I still have a long, long, long way to go
But, at least,
This road is well worn

And I suppose I am,
forever one.
A wanderer, that is.
With the pineapple backpack absolutely screaming, "she tries too hard!"
The braids, "Throw back to elementary school"!
She searches in vain,
for a space amidst shadows
Threatening, to swallow her up
She misses the friend, she pushed away
She misses the group, laughing and joking on the other side of her wall of insecurities
She attempts to reassure herself,
Till,
it's torn out and something just
cRaCkS
....

A shattered glass
Can be made anew
But this time,
with clay

Rap music, discernible except for when the rumble and bumps of the jumping wheels takes over
But still subordinate compared to the twitters, chattering away
The scent of chicken wafts over from the seat across the isle (mind you I’m a vegetarian)
The seat head vibrating my head, thumping the same spot
From rap to pop, voice like a silky cord, winding, winding, grating
Piano back to rap
Head bends and peers, teases, smiles, the turtle returns back into the shell
Phones, phones, busy busy bees those thumbs
Back squished, precarious water bottle about to-HORN
Blasts, the wheels jump, and I’m gone with the sway
My **** falls, my body shakes, the chatters, the charters, the laughs, the shrieks
I’m swept up, I’m swept up
And washed away
...
We’re here

I go over my bucket list one more time...
Study, then jog a bit, finish my drawing for my grandma, then the equation I couldn’t figure out, then write the essay-
Or wait-maybe I should read the guidelines one more time-
The due date, when is it again?
AH! Piano is more immediate, where’s my metronome?
Oh no! The books are all our of order again and I can’t find it, why don’t I reorganize them in the process-
My room looks like trash why don’t I-

“Honey, are you done with your homework yet?”

Um...






Well...