Broken
Broken
Broke
My back is broken
It pulls the air
Out of my lungs and
Silences
My song

My hands do things I’m not aware of

They hide my keys
In the pockets
Of freshly laundered pants

Behind
Under
Inside many
Many
Pieces of furniture

Dangling from my bicycle lock
(For 3 hours)

Hanging from the front door lock
(All day long)

By a flower growing
In the crack
Of a sidewalk
That I had knelt down
To examine

In the fridge
Yeah
I know

My hands lock my keys up
In the backyard shed

In the trunk of a car

In a car’s ignition
With the motor running
No joke

And of course
Inside my house
While I am
Outside my house

One day my hands
Unbeknownst to me
Will lock all of the doors
And throw all of the keys
Away

So many years
Feeling bad about myself
Berating my being
For being
Fundamentally flawed
Fragmented
Irreparable

I wish someone had noticed
Me
Pulling the hair off of my head
Me
Flailing about
Like a trout
Out of water
Me
Stepping on
All of the rakes
Unintentionally
But also
Sometimes
Fully aware
Of where
They were lurking in the grass

And I wish they’d said
To me
Stop
Stop
Stop.
Breathe.
Look around.
You’re ok.
You’re ok.
You’re beautiful
And young
And you couldn’t possibly know
How quickly time runs away.
So stop.
Stop saying
What’s wrong with me?!
You can stop
Because I’m here
To tell you.

What is wrong
With you
Is
That life
Fooled you
Into thinking
That there’s something wrong
With you.

You don’t have to write everything down
In one poem
You’ll get to
Every little
Piece of mind
Eventually

Now sleep

I get it why people believe in god
I get it
It’s nice to have
A voice inside your head
Telling you
Everything is going to be ok

I’d rather let
The dowsing rods
Of my heart
Lead me to where
I can dig down
And divine
What is definitely
Not ok

Music doesn’t belong to me
It never has
I thought I’d discovered it

Well, actually I did
It’s just that others
Had gotten there before me

I wanted it to be mine
Because
It made me feel
Special
Resplendent
Alone but
Less so

So many dead musicians
So many unborn
So many much better than I

It’s ok

Because I
Discovered music