Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 3

these have a distinctly romantic bent for which i cannot explain

1:
I’m a memory you don’t use to make decisions anymore.
I saw her, she looks just like me,
Was it that I was your type, just my personality didn’t fit?
I knew we wouldn’t work.
It doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.
You said you didn’t want that –
That life –
The one woman, living with you, loving you,
With you.
I said I needed to be able to be put first, and that couldn’t happen because of your kids.
You said, I want to be able to go with the flow and live in the moment.
I guess, it was my fault, taking you for your word.
I broke you up, got you back together, what will happen the next time we talk?
Will you remember to call on our birthday?

2:
How are you actually supposed to tell people how you feel?
This must have been some magical lesson y’all were taught in kindergarten.
And now we tell Tommy that what he did hurt our feelings and ask him not to do it again.
How do I say to this boy, hey, I have stronger feelings for you than I thought I would.
They caught.
How do people bring these things up in the moment?
Can you really tell people they made you angry? I’ve never seen it work. I have no modeling.
I’ll just keep guessing. But I feel like I’m buzzing around a bug zapper, waiting to get hit with electricity when I make the wrong move.

3:
64 ounces of soap.
That is how much came in the mail today.
Since April 27th I’ve known we were running low.
I looked for low-shipping local soap companies, liquid, of course, it has to be liquid.
I found online bulk retailers, I could buy a pallet of soap, shipping incld, not that expensive, really.
Finally, Monday, I was adding mustard seed to my grocery store online cart that now acts as my reminder list, and I saw it.
Two-pack Softsoap refill, free two-day delivery $8.94.
And it came in the mail, wrapped in overly large, unbranded ziploc baggies.
My soap. It came in the mail.
I called my mother,
Mom, I got more soap.

4:
Editing essays of folks who say they’re great writers.
I texted my friend applying for grad school, engineering management.
Hey, quit using adjectives. I have to cut the part where you say “I’m a succinct writer.”
I told him in the first round, tell me a story.
He said okay.
I told him in the second round, an essay should be supporting a main point. If your paragraphs are not supporting the main point …
Suddenly I was talking to my 8th graders, my tutoring students.
Why do we never learn the fundamentals?
Why do engineers never learn humility, clarity, or empathy?
Why can my 13 year olds not remember how to structure a paragraph for an essay?
Why don’t I remember I’m supposed to be full of coddling, even when they ask me for editing help?

5:
There’s a power dynamic issue, when one half of a friendship is in love with the other.
I left it with him, to decide if he wants to be my friend.
But I drew the boundaries.
I said I cut myself off from feeling anything toward you a long time ago.
He said he thinks that’s impossible,
Saying instead you know how I feel,
But never spelling it out like you want him to.

6:
I want to cry alone in a sound-proof room,
Feeling bad for Stevie Nicks in Silver Springs.
That’s what I’d do if I were alone.
I wouldn’t have to explain the way we use curse as a verb in America.
I could leave my room without someone saying my name.
I would wear my silvery, sparkly, somewhat dangerous top all day, because it’s shiny and it makes me happy.
But, look, I wouldn’t do any of those things if I were alone. I’d find another blocker excuse to stop me from living how I wanted. Today, I’m just using the stay-at-home orders trapping my roommate and I together.

7:
I returned a 23 palms shirt to the UPS store.
I sent emails to ads on craigslist about apartments in Washington.
I called the insurance company to fix the double claim that was denied falsely.
I made my bed, called my mother, took a shower, and put a sprig of rosemary in my hair I stole off a bush I passed while I was walking by.
These are the things I did today. I will not think more than one hour ahead.
Today I do one thing at a time.
I will now go make a playlist of music to listen to in the car tomorrow.
Notice how I hamper my own planning and future analysis brain, but I get stuff done for now.

8:
My body is smaller than it was in college,
I can see a vein in my neck now,
Feel a collarbone under my tapping.
My thighs, I’ve measured are still the same size, 24.5 inches.
My roommate told me that I’m melting.
I feel like I was supposed to look like this all along, and I’ve been hurting my body for all the things I imagined I did wrong.
There are wrinkles now around my eyes, without the fat to fill them in. And there are hip bones I forgot could close drawers.
But I still don’t know how to dance. And I still can’t do anything right.

9:
I told my therapist,
My dad said something I think you’ll think is funny.
I told him, my dad, when he asked how I used the money he sent me last week,
I said oh I’m using it to pay my therapist.
He said, so I’m literally paying for my mistakes.
I laughed.
He said, what would have been funnier is if you would have said, no for that you’d need to be paying more.
We laughed.
I’ve never seen my therapist laugh so hard, so unexpectedly.

10:
He texted, asking how I was.
I responded, and asked the same. To only receive a one-word reply.
I warned him, I’m calling you if you don’t give me anything.
So we sat on the phone for an hour.
And I oddly felt nothing but friend affection. A minor tug when he told me about another woman, how he’s going to focus on work again.
And I told him how I’m having trouble sharing.
It felt like we were friends again.
Like he made me promise,
When I made an off-color joke after he texted me for the first time in months,
Either drunk off his ass or sober, I’m not sure which is worse, he said, let’s always be friends.
I said pinky promise.
This is one of those ones where I want to read ahead in the chapters of life to see how we end, if we’re still friends in five years, or if I’ve forgotten his name, and I’m not sure where he lives.

Ten Poems (11-12-17)

1:
We don’t have souls; we’re just our bodies.
Not much better than ants,
Smarter, with a larger, more complex society,
But you kill us and we go away.
There isn’t some spirit that survives.
It’s all very simple, he told me.
And I thought he had no sense of the silliness of life.

2:
We sat in the back far corner of a studying-type bubble tea place.
I don’t think I’m the person he invites out to go drinking.
But, I could be myself with him for a minute, which was great, because I was sullen and being assholeish.
I used crude language to be fun.
I updated him about my life, my dates, my non-ending sinus infection, and my fears.
I listened while he had to remind himself to come back to his body, because his depression would take him somewhere else.
I laughed at his stories, and his breakups, hookups, and drug use.
It was nice to be friends for a minute.
To think to myself, we’re friends, I can do this.
I can buy life insurance,
And have tea, normal-like, and find a way to make it.

3:

4:
He gave her what she wanted.
That’s the refrain.
She wanted another child.
She told me, my mother,
She was thinking about getting a donor, if she didn’t find someone.
Were we not enough?
Are my sister and I not enough?
Is that why my brother gets more money and attention?
He’s the boy. The youngest, the one really wanted?
She told me when she forgot she was talking to me.
They were getting divorced soon anyway,
She said there was no way.
I’m thinking I was the one last try, the goodbye, or the accident.
At the same time she was mock-trial arguing women’s reproductive rights at her law school,
She chose to have me.
And I sit here on a Sunday afternoon wondering what I’ll do by accident,
And what I’ll get because I want it, one way or the other.

5:
I wore a tank top that showed my bra
So he would look at my cleavage.
It’s the one thing about me I thought he might like
But if I’m resorting to skin,
It means I’m desperate.
I’m not sure which shows more strength,
The persistence of trying without hope
Or the courage to have confidence in what’s left of my body.

6:
Will I be my mother and have no long-term close friends?
Will I have no one to hang out with on Sunday nights?
Because I want that.
The casual, they just show up.
I’m tired of having to plan it.
I know it comes with time, trust.
But I want a click, I want luck, I want safety.
I guess I’m sacrificing the opportunity for something better, to settle safe.
I think I’m okay with that.

7:
Be proud of your failures.
What an un-American thing to say.
Us, the people who can’t take seriously the things we didn’t do ourselves.
Unless you’re talking to businessmen who are telling you about how to build a better life using these three principles,
I don’t see anyone taking that to heart.
I see them pretending to brag about the things they did that went wrong,
To fool themselves into an excuse for bragging, and follow step three written in the first book they’ve read in years.

8:
It’s like she forgot she left.
She was telling me how bad dad was to her when we were little,
With a casual wave, before you remember.
I told her, when it was just me and dad,
When she was in school,
He was calmer by then.
She looked at me in shock,
Still never seeing that other people have lives too,
That might be just as important, painful, or meaningful.

9:
I don’t open up to him, I don’t feel safe.
I like him, I’m attracted, but I don’t feel I can be myself.
Is that because he’s more attractive?
Or because my body knows he’ll hurt me, and it’s keeping me tucked away,
The me who has no boundaries.

10:
I’ve been staring at a age-spot that appeared on my hand.
I remember the wart that was there for years and years.
The constant shame of my hand, the constant hiding.
Right there over the third knuckle.
How often I would pick it apart, hoping I could make it go away without showing anyone.
Without creating another problem for my mother.
Who tried to ice-burn it away with some over-the-counter contraption she picked up on her way home when she was only going to the grocery store for one thing.
I was fifteen before we went to the skin doctor and the third thing he tried made it vanish.
And I wonder if his spot on my hand if from the cream they used.
If this is a delayed reaction, to the fact I hid my shame,
And didn’t tell anyone about what was wrong until years later.

Poems for the Week (7/6)

The schedule is now more like a rough outline. Anyway, this is what I wrote this week

1:
I wonder what I’ve done to permanently injure someone else
And I never knew.
I wonder who’s memories I haunt
And if our spirits cross in each other’s memories to wave hello to a friendly face.

2:
I knew a girl with my first name.
I thought she should keep it.
It fit her.
It fit her far better than it fits me.
I’ve always thought of it like my body, a trap instead of one together.

3:
I’ve found my temporary freedom card in an odd place.
It was under the seat of the old car.
I plug my phone into my car and let music play.
I sing as loud as I want driving to work.
I sing off, I constantly rewind, I’ll listen to that part again.
I bear no one’s standards. I get yell and howl and screech.
Only where no one hears me – that’s as strong as I am.

4:
I pushed myself into the cracks so that she wouldn’t notice me, and I had an excuse to be shy.
My Mom usually forgot about me. I thought that has a nice ring to it.
So I wouldn’t draw attention or ask for, then I could bemoan my state.
But you can’t tell her that. You can’t blame her for anything. Don’t you know what she went through?
We take the blame, and smile at you, and add another edge, next to our broken teacups.

5:
The first time I met you, we sat on the floor off the right wing of the art building. I cut cardboard and you sketched lines.
The first time you schooched over toward me, I flinched when you touched my arm.
I told you, you shouldn’t smoke, and you asked me why I cared.
You played guitar for me by the naked lady fountain and I stared at our Converse.
You said you wanted to be an anesthesiologist because they made the most money.
I told you, you can’t buy a suit jacket that falls that far down your wrists.
Then we just stopped running into each other. And I blamed me, my defects, something wrong, prolonging the incapacitation of confidence. I read somewhere that if they really want you they go after you.
My number hasn’t changed.

6:
I always think, if you’d have just told me,
By this point, I’d be able to stand on my own two feet.
Instead of amounting to debt and new excel sheet lines in inventory.

7:
Next time, you tell me you’re never drinking again.
What do I say?
Good. I’m glad?
What do I do when you go on a bender?
Do I just sit and wait to remember all the times you told me you’d stop after college?
Go on, brush me off, I’m not important.
When do you take me seriously? Is there something unserious about me?
What do I say when you ask for another twenty just to cover tonight?
Don’t brush me off. Please.
No, you know what? I’ve done all I can.
Destroy yourself now. That was a command not an insult.

8:
I don’t let anyone speak to me like that.
But I’m tied to you, I need your money.
So I say nothing.
I add another tack to my miserable, and say
You could have prevented this, you could be somewhere else by now,
If you weren’t you.

9:
It’s rained for three straight days.
So I wore black jeans in summer, to say,
Hello sky, I commiserate with you.

10:
You condemned my curiosity. I will not absolve you of that.
You mock whatever isn’t your standard.
I use that tool now. I know how to make people feel ashamed of trifles, because you taught me.

Poems from my Week (5/28)

i am. a penniless, schedule keeper. but i thought i’d tell you about my week

1:
The dentist took my wisdom teeth.
I had to go back to his office.
I had to be polite
To the man who caused my week’s worth of pain.
He should sell himself as a weightloss specialist.

2:
They know who I am as soon to look.
Then I have to be the attitude they’re expecting,
Because they’re waiting for it,
They’re who I’ve always wanted to be.
They’re women who knew what to do with their hair,
Because their mothers told them,
Because their moms knew,
Because their moms cared what their hair looked like,
And not that they were late.

3:
I would much, very much like to know someone who would
Celebrate a very merry unbirthday to me, to you.
I want someone to push me,
Accuse me.
Ask me why didn’t you finish that when you were told.
I put more of you on paper as real.
I’m hoping you’re the one person of whom I can say,
“She knows me, she gets me, she understands.”
You know why I need to pour tea from a watering can and cry.

4:
I want to talk to you, but you’re high.
I can’t even tell the difference anymore.
When did I become a nag?
My mother bugged people like I’m starting to.
He doesn’t love me enough to stop.
I haven’t asked.
I can’t ask.
I can’t complain about something I haven’t spoken of.

5:
You’ll know me, then be bored of me, then leave me.
I am me without you,
I am me without you.
If I see you again,
It’ll all come back,
Like driving past elementary.

6:
The skin cancer man didn’t wear sunscreen,
Until the doctor told him:
Please continue, I have two kids to put through college.
Insult to the way you handle money,
Only to be pull off by a stranger in authority.

7:
Complain about yourself.
It can’t be your fault.
Oh, the most horrible thing happened.

8:
I cussed out the woman who lives in my phone.
She directed me to three closed coffeehouses
Before she found a tea place instead.
I wanted to hold her accountable, and couldn’t,
It’d be better if I could.

9:
Remind me to tell yous –
Are remembered after it’s been lost,
And it’s raining,
And your shoes are squeaking,
And the food is cold.

10:
She called – just to chat.
I talked for an hour.
Thursday night ramblings of weekends and weeks before and things and trees and shrubs.

10 Poems (4-29)

i know, i’m behind schedule again. sigh.

1:
We walked out of the restaurant smiling, with happy on our faces,
I’m thinking, no I can’t remember the last time that happened, not at all.
It was a good time.
But then I realized I was having a good time and ruined it.
You weren’t there. We got white cheese queso and had mock battles over the possession of salsa.
We were happier without you. And I was in a good mood.
No bows drawn back, no double meanings, did you catch thats,
It was just nice.
How sad it must be for you, no longer needed, now only tolerated till it’s done.

2:
I teeter and wobble on the line between farcically melodramatic and temperate mundane.
I pull out big words when I’m uncomfortable. If I’m awkward at least they’ll know I’m not totally stupid.
But big words don’t mean thoughts, good thoughts,
Thoughts like, I’ll never be good enough as long as I keep thinking I’ll never be good enough.
Nothing profound.

3:
I sit in the chair that seems lower than my knees, so I feel small.
He looks me over, tests my hooves, and my references.
It’s all great fun.
I want to say, I’ll do whatever you want, just give me salary.

4:
I am a washing machine, no wait, hang on, hear me out.
I have cycles, cyclical, big word, did you see that big word?
I tell myself, I have to stop this, I can’t do this again. I can’t do this to myself again.
I shouldn’t. And then I do, I talk to him, and wish I hadn’t. I started it.
I say, I won’t do this again. I’ll take a break from him.
Then I don’t, and wish I had, because I rinsed and he responded.
And I felt a silly old rag fool.

5:
Engrained in me are a few strings and shavings of stone.
They shore up every once in a while when I’m not looking.
You boil spaghetti in a big pot.
You give the three-fingered wave on two-lane roads.
You are polite to old people.
You bring a gift when you go somewhere.
Immoveable aspects of me.
I don’t know they’re there till something turns them wrong, and my whole me says,
No, stop, you can’t, it’s just wrong.
It’s probably why, even if I don’t “believe” I’ll bring my kids to church.
Because it is done. I must miss so much of life because of what I can’t see I can do.

6:
You were born to be better than me.
Better in heart, soul, spirit,
Better at church, love, speaking, breathing.
But I got something you can’t touch, and it’s what will keep me in straight confidence.
I’ll never tell you when I figure it out.

7:
I’m indecisive about whether I want a lover, one good friend, or a leader to follow.
I should pick one,
I should pick something to do, with a whole heart.
I want a braided tie to another something here around somewhere,
Maybe it’s time to look down toward my chest, touch my chin to my collar bone,
And find some passion.

8:
I try to explain to him, Ryan, I mean, I’m trying to say why I’m friends with him.
I have an entire, a whole ethos, thing about being friends.
Is that odd? Of course it is, but I won’t be ashamed of it for you.
I think we can be friends and I can not like you.
I don’t have to think you’re great to get along.
We’re not soul friends, or good friends, or pound my chest brothers,
But we are good enough, and I like to talk to you.

9:
I want a goat who votes,
He jumps over ballot boxes, and steel legged plastic tables
And crinkly red, white and blue paper table cloths,
Well those he stops to eat.
Then I can blame the goat,
And eat him, or freeze him, or get some cheese for my trouble.

10:
I’ve never been on fire, not for a man or with cigarettes.
My mother would imply there was something wrong with me for it.
I never let myself have the chance to be really stupid.

10 Poems (3-28)

I wrote ten poems today. And here they are.

1:
Please tell me it’s not tomorrow,
Please.
Can I have a stopwatch with magic,
So it can be today forever,
Until I want to be tomorrow?
I used to want that in school,
During finals,
A pause, where the clock would stop,
And I could study more, longer, better.
But it occurred to me, that even with infinite time,
I’d still wait until the last minute.

2:
I’m scared to start something,
With someone who will make me lonelier than I am now.
I’m content, sort of,
To sit here, and know it could be better,
But also not worse.
There’s a safety there, here,
In knowing exactly how miserable I’ll be tomorrow.

3:
I feel everything I do is the midday snow in March.
I’ll snow in the middle of the day,
Be forgotten by the night,
Never stick,
Get complaints about my timing,
And brushed away off coats
With a sigh, and a backwards glance.

4:
I wanted you to be my go-to boy,
The, I can call you to tell you about,
Oh my god this crazy thing I just saw on the side of the highway, guy.
I just needed someone who valued me more than something else.
I though it could be you.
I let myself hope for just a second.
But, wait.
If you like me,
It means you’re like me,
And a flake.

5:
I went to this bar where they brew their own beers.
I watched a skinny thin boy in a black v-neck sing his heart out
To people watching the basketball game.
He sounded like pre-recorded coffee shop guitar music,
With just the right touch of passion.

6:
I can’t even look at him.
He thinks, I’m sure,
Oh look how demure,
No he wouldn’t think that,
He wouldn’t know what that word means.
I see him and remember.

Those would have been perfectly fine to stay hidden, just there.
I won’t think of the memories,
But I know how those memories feel.
I know how I should feel,
If I was remembering those memories
While I look at him.

7:
I’d like to hold my breath for as long as I can,
Just so my body would do what I told it to.
This body I hold,
Has nothing to do with me.
It just holds me for the next one,
The next one of me that will come along,
Once I lose my lease.

8:
He said, he doesn’t want to get out of bed.
Well, his back hurts,
I mean, really, I’m lazy,
Ok it’s like 20% back pain,
And I’m comfortable right now.
I wish I could turn off the light without having to get up,
God I’m so comfortable.
Could I like make a pulley string that would turn off the light from here?
I should have been an engineer.

9:
I miss the way my people sound.
The people I grew up with,
They sound a bit like home,
God I miss that.
I miss that I trained myself to never sound like them again.

10:
I use my nails to stop the thought train derailed.
Nails in the palm of my hand.
Red half circles.
They say, stop,
Stop thinking about that.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (1-24)

I tried to write a poem today, but couldn’t get started. So instead I gave myself a time limit. I’m not sure if it was worth it.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day: January 24th

Poem 1:
They must not realize
They can’t.
Everyday an insult
A slight
Something that hurts somewhere.
I can get used it.
I don’t have a choice.

Poem 2:
I took down the Christmas decorations
Because I was told.
If you tell me,
I’ll do it.
But it will have no heart.
Only the work there.
All the work I do,
I tell myself to,
So there’s holiday missing somewhere else.

Poem 3:
He told me I was cute.
I don’t want to be,
I want beauty.
I settle
For this thing you give me
You give me the want
To put on makeup.
I want to change me for you.

Poem 4:
Only for winter
In my tired brain
It says:
Never leave here please
Stay where it’s warm
You don’t have to go
It’s all here
I can protect you here
It can’t go wrong.
But I have to get up to eat.

Poem 5:
Eating Thai
He says I like flied lice.
I look at his wife.
She says, it’s just silliness,
With her shoulders.
I stare at her.
She tells me to calm down
With a tug at a frown.
I eat my meal paid by her
And hate myself for not saying.

Poem 6:
If and when
I call you on the phone
Don’t give me advice
When I complain.
Just listen, please.
I know the things you say
Are right
True and proper.
But I don’t care.
I want to complain.
Listen to me whine.
Don’t make it better,
Don’t try.
Let me cry please
Without making it wrong.
By saying you shouldn’t
By improving me.

Poem 7:
My experience should mean little
To who I am.
My worth, I mean.
I may have lived under a great big house.
But you do not tease me for things I have not done.
You cannot know me,
Or find out why I did not do
What you seem fit to push me for.
You do not joke about my value that way.
Do not call me a child, baby, little girl,
Protected.
For you do not know, I haven’t told you,
And now never will.

Poem 8:
I want.
For sure I want.
Wanted hasn’t happened here with envy in so long.
Sit with me when I’m sick.
Please.
I feel bad alone.

Poem 9:
I didn’t do what I should have done
In your eyes.
I don’t know if I could see through your vision.
You don’t try to understand anyone:
Your way is best.
They should all see it my way.
It’s simple, and direct,
Don’t have to think about all that they seem to be saying.

Poem 10:
He said,
Thank you.
I said, no problem.
I hate you in my heart.
But I’m polite.
Never confuse kindness with polite.
One is curtsey
One doesn’t exist without motive.

Another One Told Me This

Don’t tell me to think I’m beautiful,
Like it’s a gift,
Like I should,
Because you’re the first to say it, you think.
My strength comes from me.
Don’t lecture me about how pretty I am.
I’m not very pretty.
It’s fine.
It doesn’t bother me anymore.
It just is.
You can say all women are beautiful.
But it’s a line you think you should say.
You don’t know me well enough to say I’m beautiful.
You think all women should think they’re beautiful.
Like all people should have confidence.
And that you’re God’s gift because you can tell this girl
This one right here
How pretty she is.
And that will make it all better
You can fix her sadness if she knows she’s pretty.

How Great You Were

It used to be you
That no matter who I talked to
I was talking to you.
But not anymore
I almost wish I was back there.
Where I thought you the greatest,
But I’m glad not to wear the acolyte robes
For the great priestess anymore.
I can see your loose seams now,
And I can speak to everyone I want.

The Poems I Wrote Today (November 27th)

I Wrote 10 Poems One After the Other
Day November 27th

Poem 1:
Home for Thanskgiving
But after I moved for school
Dad moved for work
And now I travel four hours to be
Home for Thanksgiving.
He said don’t feel obligated to come and see me
But I think I should, so I did.
And here I am
With all it’s quietness and hot food
In someone else’s house for Thanksgiving.

Poem 2:
He went through so much work for us
Made all these dishes on all these plates I never saw otherwise
This ceremony he takes up, otherwise shunned the pop of cultural
So we ate, but she usually had a cold
And would lean over to say
I can’t taste any of this,
Then tell him how great it all was.
He cooked because his mother cooked on the same day.

Poem 3:
I shouldn’t have been driving
I slept in my daydreams only
And I ran into the snow
Little flakes flew off at first
Then it stuck
I should have pulled over
Kept saying at this one the next exit
Behind blurring red dots of a FedEx guy.
If I’d ‘ve stopped I would have stayed stuck
Like after a while I couldn’t change lanes
Because of the ice in the middle,
Keep yourself there.

Poem 4:
I don’t mind you at all
I won’t have that all consuming passion
But I won’t mind
You’ll be there for a while
You can have me for a bit
Then give all my me back when I leave, please.
I’ll promise to give you back your change.
But I won’t mind, I don’t think.
I never expected to be attached,
Just scared to have no strings.

Poem 5:
And now, it’s been too long since I’ve seen people
I get all jittery
And giggly and I’ve lost all my charms
To be relearned to be with friends
If you’re around the vain who won’t let you talk.
I have to remember I’m worth a glance.
When I see a friend tomorrow.

Poem 6:
I love the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas
Not either of the holidays themselves
But just the stuff that goes around them.
Well I guess why
Is that we all seem to be thinking something like the same thing.
And I feel closer to the girl siting next to me.

Poem 7:
I’m so cold I can’t sleep
I wait for it to take me
So I’m less cold
Or forget I’m cold
Or something
Beyond
It’s cold.

Poem 8:
I flit across a memory
One I don’t want there
My hands freeze up
And I stare at what I was only looking.
I say, I’ll put this in a box
I have a case in my mind full of wands and witches and bits of rubber
They hold all my boxes
Some with extra tape
All the times I’ve fell.

Poem 9:
I need a buffer with me
For most people
Stand over,
Yes, right,
There.
In their way, in front of me.

Poem 10:
The first time I disagreed with my father
I learned I was wrong.
And just how wrong I was
With citations and page references
Footnotes and verse
There was no other option.