suicide

Fitting in a Poem

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i can fit in a poem
faster than i close the novel
check my email
and suck up to Facebook

it won’t be a Frost beauty
with a perfect
tennis-netted rhyme
but it still squeezes into my day

exhaustion seeps in
as the words pop from fingertips
and i wonder why i force myself
to type when my mind is elsewhere

i think of that chiseled creature
valedictorian boy whose life was perfect
who could do no wrong
and decided life wasn’t what he wanted

i think of that selfish email
snaking its way between the lines
of yesterday’s poem
and darkening our hearts

speaking of snakes
like one curved and black
my road home rides up the hill
and asks me to pedal faster.

i can fit in a poem
between children’s bedtime
ice cream enthusiasm
and my favorite show.

but will my words still work tomorrow?

In This Moment

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

in this moment

I can find the pace I need to get me there stronger
Mythili can “read” a whole page in her elaborate story
Riona can say “I wuv you” seven times
Isabella can brush her top teeth by herself

and someone on the other side of the world
or right across town
is giving birth to a perfectly healthy baby
while another lost soul is pointing a gun to his head

in this moment

I can hear Alanis Morisette motivating my pedals
my students can see twenty pictures on Google
of the cedar trees they’ve never heard of
the teachers can track me down for brownies

and someone right across town
or on the other side of the world
is pounding a woman’s skull into the drywall,
while another is handing a ten-year-old his first pair of shoes.

in this moment

I will live
I will love
I will remember what I have
what we all have
(somewhere within us)