clutter
a collection of messy & unfinished things1
• • • • • • • •
and it takes forever to arrange the words in any semblance of a meaning.
I am moving sideways now across a
very small amount of space and it will
never end.
• • • •
tearing apart old poems
to find what they're made of.
i want the base components -
blood or sorrow, joy or pride.
i want a room that sings it back
to me. it's building up a chorus.
I had it once - a well-spring,
where there were tens of thousands
of stories pouring out and into
waiting palms.
I spelled the water into ink
and wrote until the page was far
too darkly sodden to see.
• • • •
the need to separate shards of myself into neat, perfect boxes.
a journal for my clean self, a journal for the mess. a room where I am lost and a room where I am blessed. infuriating. meaningless. standing within myself and screaming, "we cannot break apart like this!"
as if in agreement: the same sunshine no matter the room. the same handwriting, just from a different view. cultivating a tenderness towards the self that's new.
• • • •
swear that you'll know me.
swear that time will not change us.
turn and bear away the shade that creeps, shyly, overhead.
the trees grow taller, thinner, sharper.
breakable. brittle,
like small bones.
i thought that life could play in reverse;
that it could flow uphill to the old roots.
i thought that time would bear us back to how we were,
forgetting that the river runs in only one direction.
• • • •
where the sun is streaming evermore over the hill, thin and soft as though through leaves or water
• • • •
There you stand: with a fine line of sunlight painted over you,
growing brighter then turning away.
Where am I, now?
Ahead or behind you?
If I grow around you, if I grow away from you,
if I tear down bricks and boards and stones,
how, then - how, again - how can we go on?
I'm asking you to love me.
I'm asking if I'm worth the knowing;
can I been seen without cracking open the contents of my stomach and ribs?
• • • •
deliverance defenestrate dally disparate dispense delegate dour drown desperate delicate despicable drought double destitute drawn daughter denounce diligent diffident distillate diversion driven divest dolorous demonstrate derelict disenchant derail dreamt
deference
disdain
doubt
deliberation
demiurge
denouement
distance
• • • •
anything to get the words out - set the words free - let them spill, messy and unpolished, onto the page. so desperate for something other than pale, empty space and the hollow echo that is heard when the room is void of everything real.
• • • •
first things first:
anticipate fear; anticipate soul hunger.
say a word and then consider the implications.
inhale wanting, cold and blue as smoke.
not catharsis, but a step beyond it:
wrung dry of sorrow or seething rage.
• • • •
For a moment, forget the ending: the longing echo, the ripples now still. Stand in a quiet hall, looking long-ways out to the end, like peering down a well. There is no real difference between horizontal & vertical, other than the awareness of gravity. You land much the same as a coin the in water. With your eyes closed, you're falling inside either way.
• • • • • • • •
I need them out of my drafts or I'm going to start screaming - and what constitutes an ending, anyway?↩