To The Author, a gloss

 If you're gonna tell 'em everything
Tell 'em I'm a good kisser
Tell 'em all the things you told me
In your desperate whisper
- Good Kisser, Lake Street Dive


As the newest character
in the stories you tell 
in an attempt to feel clean 
may i make some requests 
for the second draft? 
tell them, please, 
that i was always stronger
than you 
liked. 
tell them truly
how beautiful my
dreams
were
you have a duty to be honest
If you're gonna tell 'em everything


telling a story is a 
powerful act
(of dominance)
as you well know. 
they say history 
is written by the victor, 
and what they omit 
is always the most telling.
when you wrote my history,
did you
Tell 'em I'm a good kisser

it is so easy to forget
the death of the author.
one a story leaves you, 
it is up to others to treat it well. 
and once it is gone, 
it is no longer something
you alone can treasure.
be careful when giving away
experiences you did not have alone.
your intellectual property has a co-owner  
that you should consult 
before you
Tell 'em all the things you told me

for the sake 
of future characters
i have some advice.
keep in mind -
some things, maybe
you would not be so pleased to lose
for example
the beautiful desires
In your desperate whisper

Happy

i remember feeling lonely

and crying 

and feeling empty. 
i remember sobbing 

'i'm all alone' 

while my partner held me.

i felt isolated from my people 

from people like me

i felt displaced

as though i had been abducted 

and dropped into a strange land 

with strange people

and nothing was familiar. 

now we are all isolated 

from all people 

locked in the boxes we chose when we didn't realize 

we would have to live here

and I do not feel alone anymore. 

in my house i am not surrounded by people i do not understand 

and who do not understand me

my privacy keeps me company

my solitude and i enjoy understanding what the other wants 

which is nothing. 

i am surrounded by the familiar 

my people are online, like they always have been 

and the distance now doesn't seem so far. 

something something 

covid is the great equalizer 

no 

it's just a chance to play the prince and the pauper 

the madonna and the maid 

madonna isolated in her house of gold 

sobbing her loneliness 

the maid in her box

with everything she wanted 

 

writing is not for the stable or sane

Once,

a man said to me,

“when you are happy,

and stable,

you will you be able to write.”

That’s not,

unfortunately,

how it works.

Writing is not for the stable

(or sane)

if evidence is to be gathered from

any other poet that has ever written.

Poets traffic on the bridges

between good and evil

love and loss

pain and healing

I walk

over one bridge,

back again.

But to stop traveling? 

no, no

we're like those fish

that die if they stop swimming.

stability, and sanity, will kill
(our creativity)

Our job is one of reconciliation -

somehow

we must find a way to speak

to the love

and pain

inside of us. 

and to figure out

(if we can)

some way to live with both.

self-sufficient

i was taking a beach day 

but he borrowed my water bottle
"i need him to bring that back," 
i thought. 

i had resigned myself to dehydration, 

when i found a spare i had forgotten

tucked above the fridge

where is that book? i wonder. 

he was reading it, he had said. 
"i need him to bring that back,"

i thought. 

disappointed at my loss, i turned around

to a stack of unfinished books

laying on my coffee table.

walking out the door, i realized 

i had given him my mask, so he would be safe. 

"i need him to bring that back,"

i thought. 

loading up the car i found  

a spare i had been given, 

sitting on the backseat.

all these things i thought i needed

for a day at the beach. 

i guess i don't.