hiccups are such a silly sound
a stomach tumbling bumbling sound
a sound full of childhood
and wistful memories
they tell the story of days gone by
of teddy bears and cookie crumbs
when it was just you and I
but now the crayons washed off the walls, the toys put away,
the lullabies sung
but we all still have hiccups
the hic hic of hap
hic
iness

people always name me
label me
for my season
a petty qualm
a minor annoyance
but annoying all the same
hey spring! they yell, like that makes them clever
hello winter, they crow
like I haven't heard it all before
sometimes I just want to scream
my name is Autumn
not winter
not spring
not summer
Autumn

is it ironic
to spew poetry
about poems?
to inscribe words about inscribing words?
well, if it is, then so be it
for poems and the air around
me, every word I write
every scene I breathe
could potentially become a poem
a lyrical transformation
of the everyday into
something never scene, written, never had
being
before
I typed it up
hands freezing on the keyboard.
waiting hopelessly for the next poem to show
on the feed
that means
so much
to me

as a child
no one ever could believe my favorite color
could
be
light.
to be precise
the morning light on a cloudy day
the deep light dove gray
of the sun behind the clouds
yellow, they could believe
gold,
they loved the sheen
but not gray.
gray was plain boring,
simply too gray
I was told to pick another
pick another?
was it so preposterous that
I loved the color that
was to oft left behind?
they told me to be a normal child
and enjoy the random reds
the mediocre blues
the grassy greens
but it will always be that light
shade
of
gray
for me.

when he touches my hand
his cold
cold hand
I smile
he smiles, perplexed
asks me why
I say
a cold hand means a warm heart
I always presumed
and now I know
that
fact
is true for you

sometimes I think
that I really need makeup
to hide me from myself
when I look in the mirror
all I see is my bad
personality
brought to life
small eyes, full of lies
full lips, I'm a *****
my mother likes to say that
I don't need makeup, that I have a nice face
but that doesn't explain away
the facts
because girls snicker at me,
boys call me crazy behind my back,
that my father calls me fat
because "he loves me
and
is
trying
to
help"
so maybe the one, two, three layers of slick and color and shine
will bar the anger and wrongness
and lack of reason or rhyme.
maybe one day i'll have the courage to wash all the makeup
away.
maybe one day

people seem to move their lips
but
nothing
ever
comes out.
well, that's not exactly true.
words escape
like dead leaves
in a windstorm
but like leaves
they
flutter
and flurry
useless things.

a pretty painted kissable lip
tempts
no one
when the words it drops like bombs
explode
killing
the life
it
envied