I’m never sure. it’s sad. I know.
I want to be honest.
sometimes I’m too honest, honestly,
and in the wrong way. the worst way.
I want to be good. good at something
anything, really. I don’t know what.
maybe I’d be a good barista
or a good waitress. I don’t know.
sushi chef maybe? is that even
something that I’d want to do?
I hate when people say they do
“computers”. That’s not even DOING
something. That’s just a noun.
Can I say I do “books”??
Is your job too complicated to
explain to simple old me?
I need to work on being logical
with my heart. I need to start
believing in chances. I have a
poet’s eye, so why can’t I have
her ever-breaking heart? her
softasskin soul? her longing for
cold winters and sunbright lemonaid
her love of love?
I have a bitter feel of love. it’s
twisted into a harsh hatred. It’s
eaten by doubt. It doesn’t smile,
it blushes, it hides. I need to
re-coax love into existence.
so that when it opens up, it
recreates the boundaries
of safety that I so crave.
I want to be the fearless poet
that Frost examines in his woods
I want the flawed ***-ful poet
that Bukowski loves to paint
I want the darkest raven-breasted poet
that Poe tearfully wrote
or I want to be my own poet,
lost in thick dusty second-hand
bookstores, full of soggy stories
too heavy sometimes
to re-tell.

I think I need to fall in love
with a poet.
So that maybe all the words
and all the hurt won’t always be mine.
I need to fall in love with a poet
so that he will whisper words
that sound better than stories and
don’t need to last as long.
I want to be the one to fall in love
with a poet.
He can make me feel something
so that all the love and the futures
won’t always come from another. And I
will write stories about us
in another world with better lives
where poetry will be sung from
the love, which dies so poetically
and I will know that I loved
a poet.