This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of hope.

Art only the escape
from what was,
what is
and what will always be
until all that’s left is

what?

I scatter my childhood,
leave it among the plains,
forget the trail of grazed knees,
praying hands and broken hearts

until all that’s left is

what?

I feel the teeth in my carcass;
always ‘I’;
never the pains of others,
never the loss of tide,
still I wonder why I don’t understand.

This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of answer.

School only the escape
from what is,
what isn’t
and what will never be
until all that’s left is

what?

I listen to you,
and it breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart in places
my words cannot scale.

Just your heartbreak;
over and over, rinse-and-repeat
sorrow in my ears
as I walk through my days.

This is not a poem,
it’s a loss of form.

Temporary I know,
but the world often disarms me,
when I am in most need of
my bow.