April 14: It's late.

The poetry called out to me all my life:
sometimes quiet and sometimes loud,
it nudged me as if from a river, water
rushing through my fingers as I tried
to escape - poetry called out to me, yes,
but it never asked me to stay so late,
never told me the clocks would fall
asleep before my eyelids drooped,
never told me that moss would grow
in my bones and I would have to let
it blossom, and hope for wildflowers.

I can say it, say it loud and say it
low, I can hold a hundred mirrors
up to myself and watch the reflection
of golden sun white out any image that
I should see - I can wear a hundred masks
and pretend each one of them is me. All
that you need to know is
I'm trying to
break even
with myself. Perhaps all I will achieve
will be hollow and paper mache. I might
lose the sound of my name. I am taller,
taller than the weeds in my backyard,
taller than the marks on my wall that
measured me once, taller than the lies
I never thought I would tell. The night
goes on, and doesn't end. It's late, and
my flesh is complaining, muscles and
bones aching with the ticking clock
and whirring fan. It's late, and yet I
must be awake. I need myself here,
wrapping the night time like a shroud.
Upon ache and sorrow and misplaced
wanderings.