February and my new creative writing class have me writing a lot of poetry. It’s a form I haven’t worked too much in but am slowly starting to love. Learning to write poetry can only be compared to learning to love going to the gym; It happens slowly, but after a while you don’t know where you’d be without it.
Glass houses are easily broken
We wander through a dimly lit
Snowglobe, watching the fat flakes
Fall from the dense sky, as
if shaken from a salt shaker.
In the dark afternoon hour
I reach for your hand as if it
Might steady me, or pin me to
This place, just for a while.
The butterflies are pinned down
in the science building, living forever
encased in their glass home.
I think only of here, and now and
You. And when you look away
I think of nothing.
Past Lives
A forty-five spins like a child’s top
Playing a cycle of Bowie or Pink
Floyd. The air is stale, smoky and hot.
In the dirty mirror I stare and think
About how you can feel nostalgic for
A time you never lived in or a place
You have never been. Is there a word
For this phenomenon I can’t explain?
Maybe I once lived a different life-
As an activist or a grandparent or
A scientologist. Could that be why I
Feel this pull towards the unknown, towards
A life I never lived or perhaps did?
Is there a phrase for this nostalgia?
Haiku
Scrolling through tinder
wondering why people can’t
just go out on dates.
To be told my body
is mine but my choices are not.
The life of women.
A creative is
someone who can smell color
and sees in flavors.
Note: photos are not mine.
