I often try imagining how you
are sensing now, or what it is to be
somebody else. But I don’t have a clue
how it feels to be clinically depressed.
Although I can be low at times, or blue,
my serotonin levels must be good.
So when I hear you claim you’re someone who
is all-emotion, feeling, empathy,
I miss the symptom you’re depressed anew.
Describing what it’s feeling like to age
and watch my peers advancing by my side,
I sense we’re all condensing. Like our gauge
is dialed back, and where it once was wide
is narrowed and it’s concentrating traits
that bloomed a quarter century from birth,
that leveled passing middle-age’s gates,
and chipped like a cut gem our span on earth.
The shape elongated to a marquise,
the facets catching and reflecting light,
comprising every hue in its degrees,
through center widening, on edges bright,
my transit has been smooth and seldom cruel.
I’ve worn the gift of living like a jewel.
I have to lie, although that means I throw
a game we said we’d honor till we die.
The whining for “I’m sorry” makes me know
I have to lie.
It’s not my fault she’s bothered. She won’t try
examining herself as cause of woe,
but fancies others’ words have birthed her sigh.
It’s no relief to hoist the mirror, though
reflection shows her whom to vilify.
She won’t attend to explanation, so
I have to lie.
Her brain’s too old, her heart too apt to hurt.
She’s nothing but emotion, truth be told.
She feels her feelings tear, and ought to blurt
her brain’s too old.
She looks to blame someone outside, to hold
responsible in words she doesn’t skirt,
a friend’s responses never uttered cold.
Emotional’s okay, but to desert
all reason and indulge in uncontrolled
hysteria just prompts me to assert
her brain’s too old.
A person acting crazy rode my train
last week. I heard her on the platform first.
She yelled into her phone enough to strain
a normal throat, fast-striding as she cursed
and ranted, sounding mad and unrehearsed.
She boarded and raved on. Now I suspect
it may have been an act to custom-burst –
a victim of those screams would disconnect.
Adults are kings at first – they have to be.
At least until the offspring spread their wings
the parents are omnipotent – kids see
adults are kings.
From birth that keeps the children safe, for things
are hazardous, the rules security
to guard against time’s arrows and life’s slings.
But sometime after 5, autonomy
emerges and the power balance swings.
Repeated wounds reveal the fallacy
adults are kings.
Obsessive language study lately fills
up time I used to put to poetry.
If I have any bucket list, it wills
me to acquire bilinguality.
I’ve thrice attempted it half-heartedly —
in class, through books, at home or restaurant —
but never till this month so faithfully.
My effort bodes to take me where I want…
It seems to me, when love is not supplied,
although an infant’s fed sufficiently,
the baby’s sense of normal’s quantified,
it seems to me.
A while passes learning how to be;
as words and actions are identified,
the kid acquires optimistically.
So fault must be upon the child’s side.
That explanation’s shown repeatedly
until, with age, the truth is signified,
it seems to me.
Well I could write a book about shared bins,
that nobody would read, no matter what.
The latest wrong, among the neighbor sins,
is dumping landfill like it’s greenwaste, but
they have to know their plastic will not rot;
they’re students – I assume they comprehend
how compost works – what’s food and what is not.
Oh, fuckit – they’ll deserve what they portend.
I’d like to write today, but need to rest.
A mystery of decades may relax,
and offer up a pattern to suggest
a pathway through a maze that’s paved with facts.
A recent recollection has impressed,
illuminating myriad attacks.
I want to take a day to play a clue,
from origin to utter point of view.
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