Anything can
look like a poem
and sound philosophical
simply by moving
the words on
different lines.

Am I doing it right?
Is this
really
talent?
Art?
Effort?

I think I am trying.
Really, I am
I go back and change the order
and I break lines
where it sounds right
But it does not take me long.
Not at all.

I try to be
intentional
and call it natural rhythm.
Instinct and style taking over
I alternate between
agonizing every detail
like When to Capitalize
and publishing free form poems without looking over them twice.

How is writing supposed to feel?
Should I labor?
or should it flow?
Or do I get to decide?

I think the things I talk of
mean something
at least.

But am I just
pretentious?

fooling myself into thinking that
using common poetry formats
somehow makes my work worthwhile?

"**** it"
no
I refuted

I said,
"Bless it"

The world is enough a hell to be ******
Why curse it further?

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

You used to eat all the blue M&Ms in the package last.
Now I eat all the blue ones first to convince myself I’m over you,
Yet every time I do
I only think of you.

I am drowning in the waters caught
In floods and tides and waves of thought
I try to bring myself to think
But ideas stay beyond the brink
I try so many and succeed in none
I strive to know and finish one
But my mind will stay to fail and flunk
And walk in ways a stumbling drunk
If I try to think of thoughts so many
I won’t be able - to think of any

"but rain is depressing"

the usual reaction
to my weird joy
when it rains.

you know what?
rain is depressing.
but that's why
i like it so much.
it's in pain,
it's relatable,
it's
sad.

It's falling
with little control.
d
   r
     o
        p.
It's gone,
absorbed
into grass,
or accepted into
a little stream
down a cheek
or on a road
making its way
to a gutter.

It's loud
and distracting.
constant interruptions
to look
up and meet
the rain,
or out the window
in a futile attempt
to see where
the thunder
comes from.
a tumult of thoughts
mixing with cries
of the wind.

Soaking clothes
and freezing hair,
though nothing colder
than the emptiness
inside.
a void filled
only with drops.
rain or tears.
it doesn't matter.
even then,
it's not stable.
just rain
and sadness
in an abyss.

And as i
Examined
My tongue
In the mirror
I could still
See your impression
Amongst the
Numerous strangers
That tried
To make
A home

     - A vacant mouth