1: for myself

it is April again, and I don't have much.

time slips on. today I am worried. 

tomorrow might be better. who can

know - the future is a glaze, a promise

fourteen years olds make to each other

and forget before they slam shut

the light screen door. at least this is true:

there is no tomorrow, not yet. I am tired

as I have ever been. there are few reasons

to do things. words, they are far, but if I at least

can push away that hard stone of fear briefly -

of wanting to polish work so hard, right now

just now, fix it and reach the top of the mountain

already - if I can let go, the words are still

always kind. they don't have to be perfect.

but they are coins in my pocket. they are soil

on which I stand, on which currently

I may be rotting. Like my wandering jew, don't know

the right word for it, its leaves are still purple 

underneath, little white hairs still catch the lights,

but the roots are weak in the knees, there isn't 

much I can do. I don't know, and I'm trying

to be okay with unknowing, the whole great

forest of it that must live in my shoulders,

the dark curtains of it that must blow in wind,

the sharp claws of it that hurt me, no thick skin.

at least there is this. something to come back to

even only for myself. when the worst rushes over me

sometimes I think of a boy I knew when I was

eleven, he wasn't smart, not cute or funny, 

poor thing had diabetes since kindergarten, but 

most of all I would look at him in wonder

because he loved nothing, or that's what I saw,

not the clouds, not a sport, not a class or a

friend. there's little to do here if you love

nothing. time will pass you by and there is lots

of hard work: sometimes even the breathing,

the walk, the sheer being-alive-ness of it all

can take your strength, your secret resolve.

I want to love. I want to love, and I want

the energy to love. I want to make, but not

make a noose for myself with this thick

rope of want I keep weaving. Even if I make

not a thing, not one twig worth keeping,

I will still be alive, still faintly freckled,

still have my twisted wisdom tooth

straining from my jaw. even that's okay,

you hear me, even that's okay.