Eight Pieces of Poetry I Am Trying to Write
1.
I’ve been thinking about our baby feet
Twenty tiny toes
With grass tickling their way between them
Twenty tiny toes
Slip-slide over dew into mud puddles
And splash the evidence on the kitchen floor
Twenty tiny toes
That pitter-patter on sidewalks
To the music of wagon wheels and bicycle bells
Twenty tiny toes
Baby feet
2.
Anxiety is a whisper
Soft and small
Timid, Shy,
Scared.
But if that whisper is spoken so close to you that
The breath it carries itself on
Shifts the hairs on your neck,
If it is so close that
Its lips brush against your ear,
If it is so close that
Goosebumps ripple across your skin,
Then that whisper may seem like a shout.
3.
My vanity is chained down by vanity.
My reflection whispers lies in my ear,
And I am so afraid of becoming conceited, of loving what I look like,
That instead I force myself to see,
An image distorted by its broken glass.
4.
I am a hypocrite.
I never ask for anything,
But always make sure everyone else has what they need.
I love to talk,
But I am afraid to speak my mind.
I call myself a Christian,
But I haven’t been to mass in years.
I preach self love and acceptance,
But I still find ways to scrutinize my flaws.
I tell myself that makeup is fun,
But if I’m being honest, I don’t wake up thirty minutes early for fun.
5.
What color is your heart?
Is it blue like the rain,
Cold and seaping with sorrow?
Does is leak with every beat?
Do you ever wonder how some people can love the rain? How there are people in the world who like its sound
On tin roofs and window panes?
How they pray for puddles and actually own rain boots? How these people think the rain that your heart cries is beautiful?
Not everyone is afraid of thunder,
And that is a beautiful thing.
6.
I’m supposed to be a storyteller
But there's not much to say.
My arms used to have tales
Tattooed over my skin with ink,
Words stretched
Distorted over my bones. I would read the words with a sugar-coated tongue
Hide the bumps and bruises and flaws in my stories
With a healthy layer of concealer.
The ink has long-faded away
But the sentences have stained my skin.
“Birthmarks,” I tell those who ask
About the scars.
I have no more stories to tell.
7.
I was afraid of the man in the moon
the way some fear God.
I was suspicious of his constant stare.
I would sit in a tree
Or in a graveyard
Or in a Church
Or on my bedroom window still
Watching him watch me. I spent my time losing staring contests.
8.
And the leaves turn to brown
And they step on them
And they like the sound of breaking bones
The colors that they loved are gone, so when all that remains is death and destruction
They lose interest
They leave
On to bigger, better, more beautiful things