PEOPLE WATCHING
I watched the best scenarios from my mind materialize
gods and goddesses of my youth, the ones that I once prayed to transformed into mere mortals and knelt to worship me.
They bloomed like chrysanthemums
came into fruition, then withered off to die.
I must have died too.
Death by apathy or death by desire
It’s all breeds the same death.
The idealized situations, idealized ideologies, idealized idealizations
situated far from mere thought
(breath of god moved along the surface of the waters)
that sort of thing.
moving and moving, farther away
leaving ripples, first ripples circling inwards and onward
until all that remained was the tidal swimming in its wake
the past, the time, the then, the now
became the how’s, the why’s
“what if’s”?
And so
I watch the worst case scenarios from my life unfold (again and again)
lined up like toy soldiers in the V- battle formation
pointed spears, tainted, poisoned
piercing my sides, my lungs making it hard to breathe.
Twisting, turning
parts dislodged from the inside-out, gutted, knifed, raped
and I think I know that it should hurt.
It’s all quite boring really;
god’s lips
god’s cheeks
god’s face
god’s hair
god’s eyes
god’s nose
god’s taste
god’s hands.
***
It’s funny; I've been quite disappointed in myself as a “writer” as i just never thought I've done enough to warrant the label...I’m working to overcome that and define the process of writing on my own terms but even now I still struggle with the so called “impostor syndrome” which ironically, many writers do. I recently submitted some writing to a site for the first time and other than editing/choosing which poems to include, having to come up with an “author’s bio” proved to be probably the most challenging. That been said, having all this time off, I decided to do an inventory of some things I’d written over the years and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much I have actually done. I’ve always been sort of...uneasy I suppose, about calling myself a writer if I don’t actually write but throughout the years it seems I have accumulated quite a bit even if I had to literally spend hours trying to piece together writings at the bottom of a 700 post draft folder. Moral of the story? Don’t be so hard on yourself; every bit counts and you’re doing better than you think! Of course I still have a long way to go but instead of beating myself up about not doing enough as a writer I’m going to try and focus on what I’ve already done and what I can do now while reminding myself that writers write and as long as I am writing, I am in fact...a writer. God it’s still so hard to say.
I first wrote this on an old writing tumblr that I deleted out of spite. Unfortunately i did not date my work back then but it must have been around 2015/2016 ish.