Published to Middle Name Mag
Lately,
people have begun to ask me
“What is it that you want to be?”
Simple in composure and projection,
it’s a question I have yet to find an an answer to.
You see,
I’ve been asking myself the same thing
since I began counting the stars clustered together in
Picasso skies,
since I could see words in the way the waves
crumpled against burnished shores,
since I noticed the similes and stanzas
hanging from willow trees and
the ones sitting beneath
squeaking swings on sun-dusted days.
I guess I could please them by saying
cardiology calls to me
just like it did for my father, his brother,
and my Papou.
I could lie and say the way
hearts contort and beat,
simply trying to keep us and our
desiccated dreams upright and existing,
fascinates me,
but in reality I’ve only ever been able to see
the poetic symbolism behind our second most
vital organ.
I could claim medicine sparks a need
for more knowledge and learning in me,
a thirst for intuition and understanding,
but I’d always be lost in the brain,
in the way it creates contorted similes and
poetic irony in our already circumvented beings.
Lately,
people have been asking me what I want to be.
How can I explain the way poetry calls to me,
the way I don’t desire to be anything earthly or
terrestrial anymore?
Once upon a time,
I believed in miracles.
I believed in a world where magic existed,
where love could actually flourish,
a place where,
despite numerous, monumental obstacles and
impregnable mountains,
I would be and believe in absolutely everything.
But now,
I’ve lost myself in a love of words and their origins,
the way they slip from my tongue easily, effortlessly,
how they stain countless untarnished pages,
the way I can simply step into a world of another’s creation,
forgetting the scars and worry criss crossing and corrupting my mind.
When people ask me
“well, what do you want to be?”
I want to tell them,
that if I could be anything,
I’d be a constellation,
a star,
a sea of cosmic beings illuminating a need for poetry.
If I could be anything,
I would be a collection of crumpled starlight because
I desperately want to be a piece of eternity,
to be an enigma so alluring even poets can’t capture its beauty
If only I knew why
I so deeply needed to be
something more than transient.
Maybe it was the day I stopped sitting beneath October skies,
when I stopped watching clouds pass over already shaded moons.
The oscillating dark and light struck me as oddly mesmerizing,
and I wanted to believe that even I could be that beautiful and unending.
Or maybe it was just last evening
as I floated in a pool beneath seas of
crumpled starlight and
fluorescent pool fixtures
that I felt the need to be
more than simply human.
The ebony sky seemed to melt and met
the edges of my existence,
the stars pooling and submerging beneath the
chlorinated water.
Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa minor,
they all seemed to embrace me,
their rays of undulating twilight
surrounding me in a sense of
sentiment and security.
I could feel them against my raised skin,
the centuries of history and possibilities
encapsulated in their glow.
I wanted to be them,
wanted to leave this earth
even if it was just for a thimble of stolen moments,
to cease being a tarnished collection of decaying supernovas.
If I could be anything,
I would be the words Dickens, Collins, and Neruda painted on
corrugated pages.
I would be the similes buzzing beneath
sunlight as it’s cupped in scalloped palms.
I would be the metaphors and symbols synchronizing with the prayers of young girls
still yearning for a sense of security and prosperity,
would be the novels carved from a need for reform or
transparency.
Lately,
people have begun to ask me
“What is it that that you want to be?”
I want to be the words
slipping form muddled tongues,
the letters penned in the wavering liquid light of dawn,
the dialogues and soliloquies consummated between star-crossed lovers.
If I could be anything,
I would be a poem.
Because maybe
poetry
is the only thing I can still believe in.
Lately,
people have begun to ask me
“What is it that you want to be?”
Simple in composure and projection,
it’s a question I have yet to find an an answer to.
You see,
I’ve been asking myself the same thing
since I began counting the stars clustered together in
Picasso skies,
since I could see words in the way the waves
crumpled against burnished shores,
since I noticed the similes and stanzas
hanging from willow trees and
the ones sitting beneath
squeaking swings on sun-dusted days.
I guess I could please them by saying
cardiology calls to me
just like it did for my father, his brother,
and my Papou.
I could lie and say the way
hearts contort and beat,
simply trying to keep us and our
desiccated dreams upright and existing,
fascinates me,
but in reality I’ve only ever been able to see
the poetic symbolism behind our second most
vital organ.
I could claim medicine sparks a need
for more knowledge and learning in me,
a thirst for intuition and understanding,
but I’d always be lost in the brain,
in the way it creates contorted similes and
poetic irony in our already circumvented beings.
Lately,
people have been asking me what I want to be.
How can I explain the way poetry calls to me,
the way I don’t desire to be anything earthly or
terrestrial anymore?
Once upon a time,
I believed in miracles.
I believed in a world where magic existed,
where love could actually flourish,
a place where,
despite numerous, monumental obstacles and
impregnable mountains,
I would be and believe in absolutely everything.
But now,
I’ve lost myself in a love of words and their origins,
the way they slip from my tongue easily, effortlessly,
how they stain countless untarnished pages,
the way I can simply step into a world of another’s creation,
forgetting the scars and worry criss crossing and corrupting my mind.
When people ask me
“well, what do you want to be?”
I want to tell them,
that if I could be anything,
I’d be a constellation,
a star,
a sea of cosmic beings illuminating a need for poetry.
If I could be anything,
I would be a collection of crumpled starlight because
I desperately want to be a piece of eternity,
to be an enigma so alluring even poets can’t capture its beauty
If only I knew why
I so deeply needed to be
something more than transient.
Maybe it was the day I stopped sitting beneath October skies,
when I stopped watching clouds pass over already shaded moons.
The oscillating dark and light struck me as oddly mesmerizing,
and I wanted to believe that even I could be that beautiful and unending.
Or maybe it was just last evening
as I floated in a pool beneath seas of
crumpled starlight and
fluorescent pool fixtures
that I felt the need to be
more than simply human.
The ebony sky seemed to melt and met
the edges of my existence,
the stars pooling and submerging beneath the
chlorinated water.
Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa minor,
they all seemed to embrace me,
their rays of undulating twilight
surrounding me in a sense of
sentiment and security.
I could feel them against my raised skin,
the centuries of history and possibilities
encapsulated in their glow.
I wanted to be them,
wanted to leave this earth
even if it was just for a thimble of stolen moments,
to cease being a tarnished collection of decaying supernovas.
If I could be anything,
I would be the words Dickens, Collins, and Neruda painted on
corrugated pages.
I would be the similes buzzing beneath
sunlight as it’s cupped in scalloped palms.
I would be the metaphors and symbols synchronizing with the prayers of young girls
still yearning for a sense of security and prosperity,
would be the novels carved from a need for reform or
transparency.
Lately,
people have begun to ask me
“What is it that that you want to be?”
I want to be the words
slipping form muddled tongues,
the letters penned in the wavering liquid light of dawn,
the dialogues and soliloquies consummated between star-crossed lovers.
If I could be anything,
I would be a poem.
Because maybe
poetry
is the only thing I can still believe in.