i have an atrium filled with ink
and my heart pumps poetry through my arteries.
in second grade, we learn about syntax—
rhyme scheme or stanzas or something—
but what i remember most is rhythm,
plotlines and play by plays beating behind my ribcage.
english class means new words,
hyperbole and paradox and synecdoche.
i don’t say it out loud but imagery is still my favorite:
piano notes, damp earth and the smell of coffee.
and blue skies. i like blue skies most of all.
if you asked me when i was little what i wanted to be when i grew up,
i would say “fashiondesignerlawyerauthor” because i thought i could do everything.
be everything.
how many lives can you fit in a lifetime?
we are taught “the author is not always the speaker”
and maybe that’s how i became addicted to narratives.
everyone told me i could grow up to be anything.
how many lives can you fit in a lifetime?
this blank verse is a separate language,
yet there are too many things that can be felt but not spoken.
what is the name for sadness
as heavy as a dress with a too-tight corset,
or panic more paralyzing than fear in its deepest form?
what words exist to describe a man who sits alone in darkness,
smoking cigarettes into the broken night,
or the girl who leaps off her balcony with the elegance of a bird,
weightless and a dreamer?
sometimes, i carve metaphors into my skin,
pretend there’s some deeper meaning to whatever ache envelops me that day.
it’s like i’m in a foreign film,
and the sky
is so terribly blue.
i carry unmarked pages in my pocket—
if everything is a symbol, then how can i tell what’s real and what’s not?
poetry
no longer speaks to me.
villanelles and limericks flood my veins,
each with its own blood type:
a-b-a a-a-b-b-a.
the best writers have a voice,
clear and distinguishable,
but i possess too many.
they never shut up yet never flow from my head to my fingers,
have taken residence within my mind but refuse to pay rent,
hold my thoughts hostage for weeks on end,
do not leave a ransom note.
how, then, do i escape this labyrinth of existence?
when did my words start to turn against me?
will there ever be another time i do not feel
the weight of the universe upon my shoulders?
the sun only shines on certain days,
and i have learned not to trust blue skies.
every other night the marrow in my bones overflows,
leaving my body overly light and hollow.
my heart beats too loudly—
a traitor to my desires.
what else will this discourse take from me?
i can only wait now,
wait for an answer,
or a cure,
or an aspiration,
or someone who believes.
no one paints the sky anymore.
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
kianamaiart
