As kids our noses bled on winter’s dry indoor heat
and then ran with snot in the overpowering cold.
As teens, we couldn’t find a good place for our hands.
They flapped in public; in private we stuck them
into our pants until we were caught and shamed
for that too. As adults we hold our tongues and minds
tightly, feeling free to loose them only when we lose them.
There’s a prohibition against us being ourselves
in every place we are. No wonder we’re sneaky
with our bodies, knowing that too many disappear
completely into the folds of this smothering world.
Daily Archives: January 7, 2014
The Prohibition Against Us
Insecure Love Poem
I am in need of craft and care
most days, sadly enough;
I thank God she’s beside me.
If I wake up roughclad in bark
she whittles me clean, shapes me
into something useful.
If morning is a minefield,
she tosses stones across it
to blast a path for us.
If the day threatens hate or gloom
she’s the Armorer Against,
the Illuminator.
What I would not give to be
the man who will not flinch!
But I do, and she does not.
What she gains from me,
I cannot say. I do my best
to be present for her; maybe
that’s enough? I ask, but
she laughs it off. I wobble along
fearing that maybe
we’ve gotten this far
on something I don’t even know
is happening and that I will
trip and break it apart
without realizing what I’ve done.
I’m clumsy that way
but she seems to know that —
so we go, and sometimes we go slowly,
but still, we do go on.
Dark Matter 