I am on my bed in an old shirt
and it is the end of a long summer,
so the world has started to move
again, this time leaving me behind,
gasping. This space is too unfamiliar,
this silence too unwelcome.
And I am on my bed in an old shirt
reaching for a pen
in the absence of a hand to hold.
But there is no poetry in loneliness,
no requiem for those left behind.
But I suppose growing up is painful that way.
There are less metaphors for the shape of your
eyes and we are both less adults
than overgrown children.
Overgrown in the way the root of a tree
forces its way through cement,
apologetic, unwelcome.
And they will not know that
writing poetry is less a matter of swirling storms
and hurricane tears,
but more a river in summer, slowly
bending its way to sea.
Words carefully treading their way to the
deep blue of the ocean.
I am older now, and when the words come
they do not trip over themselves in the leaving.
I have grown used to the hurricanes,
but there is a quiet calm in the aftermath.