Things I’ve found out (the right season)
a free verse poem about finding stability & self-acceptance
I know
That things won’t work out as planned
I know that
Because my mother taught me how to be a man
But there are
Parts of me that won’t let someone hold my hand
Because I
Because I
Find graveyards appealing
Harsh winter thunderstorms healing
And the chaos within you is quite often revealing
Of the doom and dismay your surroundings convey
The filth
The agony
The dreams others built for you become destroyed
I’m my own person
But when I drive home at night
I don’t feel alone
I just know I am
It was cold in Chicago
And I wanted to lay down
In the snow
My frail body
Seldom appears melancholy
Singing you songs, breathlessly, to you in your sleep
Though my voice is never the right pitch
Maybe that’s why I wait
Until you hit your steady dream state
An abyss of perpetual ignorance to moral obligations
The impatience
Is testing me
Like a ticking clock
Telling me
I
Haven’t painted
The sky quite right
Haven’t gotten the stars
To my audience’s delight
And I think
I might combust
From the tainted, porcelain figure I often wish to set on fire
Because what burns
Feels so warm
In winter
It’s almost
February
The anniversary of
A thousand slumbers
A rainfall that struck me like
Lightning on the fast lane on the highway
Swerving between cars with my eyes closed
Thinking I’m oh – I’m just so composed
But me, parchment paper thick, practically comatose
Wouldn’t keep anyone up at night
When you haven’t
Made a name
For yourself
And nobody
Gets the intonation
In your full name quite right
Maybe it’s not
The right time
To say
That what burns feels so warm
In winter
My god
The shades of blue
How I’d devour the skyline
Like an arsonist,
I fade to grey
Along with the trembling cityscape
I encapsulate all the seasons & am easily forgotten
I only hope to properly portray
The vacancy light in this hotel I occupy
Me,
Against the wall
Cold, doll-like, confused
Fingertips
Painted the lightest shade of pink that the nail salon could offer me
If only,
I could be elegant
I could like parts of myself that others don’t
I could live my life like
My father envisioned
When he said to me
That I was born
In the perfect season
For a girl who prolongs
Finding a reason
To burn this place down to the ground
Hollow
Cave
Where my old journals remain
Where ex-boyfriends mispronounce my last name
They never remember the best parts of you
They never really knew
How to get through
How your eyes turn dark green when your favourite song comes on
Or when the colour temperature is five thousand Kelvin and
I feel ashamed
That I woke up to find
Myself
Not in embers
But filling a body
With wholeness that only
Real self-acceptance could develop and create
Something permanent
Is never
Found
I’m no good with directions but I don’t believe I’m lost
I’m exactly
On my own two feet
Waiting
To leave a message after the beep
But I hang up, because I remember
They can’t pronounce my last name
The intonation
Is weak
And I
Am so
Much farther than I thought I would be
At this time of my life
Are you, at all, surprised?
When I look
At the cars
Passing me by
On the highway,
I wonder
If they’re going
Somewhere warm and inviting
I don’t know why
That
To me
Feels so terribly frightening
Like a cradle filled with endless lightning
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