Writing poems
written February 17th, 2021

These poems
don't seem like much
as I sit at my desk
with the blinds open
writing on the green graph paper
I have always written
engineering homework
and poems on.

The exhaustion doesn't hit
until I post them online
moving the handwritten original
from unfinished to finished notebook.

finished (for now)
finished (but not quite right)
finished (but not good enough)
finished (but not worth speaking out loud)
finished (and to hell with it post it)

Something about that act
makes me want to
go back to bed
even though the sun
is bright in the window
sure that
I will never emerge
to write another word.

Thank goodness
that feeling isn't permanent
or this unfinished notebook
now filled with bits and fragments
words forgotten as soon as they were written,
would be filled with blank pages.

And the finished (but not quite right) notebook
getting heavier each day
with MY words
that have been released into the world,
would only have that one poem in it.