I've stopped trying now
I've stopped flapping my arms and legs
frantically
and suddenly, I stop drowning

suddenly, I'm a leaf
being carried afloat to the shore

and why do you write?

i'll go first
i sometimes forget my name
it's one of those days
(every other day)

if you tell me I can't make it as a writer
that I must quit "trying"
I'll go into my burrow
and write about it in my little book

i write to live correctly

you're only alone
when you club yourself with the
employees
the tgif-ers
the rule abiders
the girls groupchat from college

you're only abnormal
when you compare yourself to the
smalltalkers
the engineers
the doctors
the selfie people

you had this wrong the whole time

the miscreants
the artists
lone visionaries who pay
for their brilliant ideas in tears
before bed each night
one more day gone by
undiscovered

this is
the secret majority
making no noise

the arthropods of the world
running the talent show
after the curtains draw close

go.

I don't know what the answer is
make a paper ball out of it
and hurl it my way
before they find out

I don't stop by
liquor houses anymore
I head straight to the sea

you're the ocean
I'm a group of islands in your world

reaching up into another

leave my mild mannered father alone
he might smile through his discomfort
but I don't