Tag: growing up

Her Own Drummer

Even armed with a wristwatch,
time is something
I never learned to keep.
Always one step ahead,
one step behind,
my own syncopated drumbeat.
I tried to keep time like chickens–
cultivating it, counting it,
trying to plan
for the next three seasons.
You can’t keep time like
chickens, no––
Keep time like children.
Close to you when it’s young,
wandering in its adulthood,
until one day it comes home, and
you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

 

3/2/15

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I Walk the Line

I walk on ledges,
roaring traffic on one side,
arms outstretched and wobbling,
the cement curb for my guide.

Should I take the road less travelled?
Is it not favored for a reason?
Trample grass or brave the tar–
my coat’s not suited to the season.

I do not follow road signs
(traffic lights be damned!)
If I can’t commit to wandering,
I can ignore what they have planned.

The path ahead is fogged up;
I don’t see what it’s worth.
But I have a magnet in my nose:
I’ll sniff out which way is north.

I’ll walk my ledges
and get where I am going,
for destination is a thing
we have no way of knowing.

 

10/6/15

#4

I know I’m alive
because my hair keeps growing.
They tell me it’s pretty,
but I don’t know—
it’s really just a pain.

All the icicles that grow in my lungs
when I breathe in the frigid air
(rigid air)
are pulling me down.

I don’t know
if it’s the promise of spring
in my step,
or the bounce in that song
that keeps me going,
but there’s something in not knowing.

I don’t know
if the answer is out there,
or if it’s within
If it’s buried in kindness—
or captured in sin.

I know
that it’s somewhere.
Because they tell me it’s pretty.
And lying about that? Well,
it seems kinda shitty.

 

3/22/14