I once knew how ink
bled from my loosely
strangled ideas into
scraps of feelings left
behind, burned across
the page, where desire
whispered against the
frailty of my own truths;
I had known the depths
of roots, as they were
bound like shackles to
the ground, where my
limitations had become
the soil in which I grew.
I blocked out words
falling from my lips
in blue ink stains on
the page; where my
imagination was left
to fight back words
attempting to escape,
I sought out freedom
from the truth, all the
while still dreading
the certainty of losing
myself inside broken
verses strewn across
the page, littered in
ramblings and debris
of a story not my own.
Written in the ashes
of pencil shavings and
daydreams are leftover
remains of my words
not quite brave enough
to take root to the page;
searching for solace in
the confines of a blank
space, where limits are
the enemy, burying my
own expectations into
first drafts of promises
in a chance at revival of
written smoke and ash.
with the words that used to flow
so fervently from my feeble mind,
lost in a realm of reason between
my thoughts and a blue inked pen,
are the whispers I couldn’t quite
grasp in order to speak out loud,
as though they were victims unto
themselves or casualties of my
own making, as I tried valiantly to
shake them out and make us both
bleed – twice for honesty, once for
a lie only I was caught believing.
down went the words onto paper
I had dreamt of and then ended
up recanting, as though no word
was good enough to share with
you my secrets and desires, and
so instead I sat staring at a blank
page, forgetting that this too was
part of my truth, I hadn’t yet shared.
write.
I write this word a lot –
almost two dozen times a day.
It’s on sticky notes, my hand,
it’s on my notebook –
every single page –
it’s on my mind.
I write until I can’t remember,
sometimes I write to forget.
There are days when time sneaks away
from me, and then there are days
when I am part of the
sixty six second minute.
That’s called fiction.
I can be in the right, or wrong.
And as long as I’m aware of that fact,
I’m right, again. So no matter,
I still win.
I have tried the whole rhyme thing,
but no good words rhyme with write.
It’s too predictable, it’s too much.
I can’t commit to one poem about a word.
It’s like a prison sentence.
That’s why I write it so much.
I space them, I slant them, I chant them,
and I rant about the whole process.
because I can.
Creative Authority.
Artistic Liability.
Lack of editing, what have you.
I’m right. I’m still right.
And even when I’m wrong,
write.
One was lost
to forcible hands,
twisting and bending,
bleeding on paper
smothered in ink stains,
crinkles on the page.
Not fine-tuned enough –
not willing to be a draft,
or a cause to let settle,
simmer and rehashed
in two months’ time;
no, one was eager.
One was desperate
to start the year,
falling short without
rhymes, riddles,
or expedition.
A few words scattered
trying to make something
in this world of sonnets,
fictions, and dreams.
One was lost,
until two came along.
Storylines in Verse 