I Grow Old And Wonder If Writing Poetry Has Always Been This Hard

I grow old and wonder if writing poetry has always been this hard

I wonder what I wouldn't sacrifice for a muse

I would give my youth if I had any left to offer

The only thing I have ever wanted more than to be a writer

Is to be loved

But these days I wonder

If there is really a difference

For where do I exist if not between the lines of every poem I have never written

And if I do not write my story who will

And if I do not claw my metaphors into your tear ducts

Who will remember me

Who will remember me

- Hiatus

I am a wound

And the longing it will scar

I am the irony of the guilty begging for mercy before the end

And temptation to give it

The ache of dreaming of the redemption you will never let yourself have 

The agony of an artist without a muse

The desire that overcomes you when your center of gravity shifts on a precipice 

The reminder of how final an edge is

How peaceful the end

I am the nights when missing him is longest 

The false memory of his gentleness 

The phantom promise of what could have been if you let yourself be reduced to repentance 

The curiosity of what it would be like to part flesh and bone, to shed your skin and be reborn without this name

The fleeting hope these seams will split and the clock will stop and the mirrors will shatter 

I am poetic justice in all her cruel beauty 

I am the universe in all her lonely infinity

I am the forgiveness that comes for you when you are least worthy of mercy

Just because I can

Oh the blood I have shed

Oh the youth I have lost amongst the grief

And for who?

In hopes a river of sorrow,

Or a pathway of scars

Would lead love back

To the hollow parts of me

I carved out

To make room for the forgiveness

I deny myself?

I dont know if I deserve you

But I know I am deserving of peace

I ask her

When was the last time you took what you deserved

She asks me

When was the last time you let go of what you did not

Revalations have historically always come in

Pieces

But I do not want to wait until the end to be whole

Perhaps failure is a learnt habit

Perhaps we are born with all the potential we will ever bear

Perhaps my existence is but circumstantial evidence

Blossoming doubt

Look at who I have become

All unfulfilled potential

And weeping willow

All blunted tongue and

Blurred edges

Is this what I am destined for?

Subar symphonies and the suburbs

Becoming my mother

Who keeps her highschool poetry

In her youthful handwriting

In a baby blue file folder

On the top shelf of her closet

We have always been my favourite tragedy

The curtain falls and keeps falling

For all you ever did was love me like leaving would be easier

And tell me you have never dreamed of

Being loved first

For does anyone truly know desire

'Till they have wanted that

Which they cannot have?

- haphazard harmony (another compilation of random lines without a poem)

I wait for inspiration at the door step of my youth. But she has long forsaken the promises we carved into my childhood bedframe. And this is the abandonment of the muse. For there was a season when poetry herself wooed me into unfurling my untried fingers to her pen and for a moment she was encapsulated by the way I bled ink for her. How deep I was willing to tear myself to reach the sweetest similies. Capillaries and couplets. And she kept me. Until the metaphors melted into puddles of half remembered melodies. And she grew bored. I cannot recall which came first.

I always knew her gaze was fickle. Her favour easily shifted with the tilt of the light. And how easy it is to fall into shadow. How beautiful the canvas of the sky when closest to darkness, when teetering on the precipice of the end. I write to her still. Shove the love notes composed of subpar symphonies under the porch where she promised she would return for me. And what does poetry know but already rotting vows.

In some letters I miss her. And in some I ask her forgiveness. In some I bleed, and leave this offering to be unfound. I wring out the papers drenched in desperation, and ask her to hold me. One last time. I ask for a poem. And I use the letters to burn my past to ash. For perhaps the smell of smoke carries farther. Perhaps ash and charred memories, will linger longer than love.

These days, I look at my body and wonder how I could have ever been at war with something so soft

03.08.22