Saturday, April 5, 2014

Whimsy

In honor of National Poetry Month, I thought I’d share something with you guys. I don’t write a ton of poetry anymore, just every once in awhile when the mood strikes. And I scrap most of them for being terrible, but this one has a special place in my heart. It's sort of an elegy for childhood.

I’ve never actually shared any of my poetry before outside of a classroom setting, so you guys should feel… scared? Click away now while you still can!

Welp. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here goes.

Whimsy

A little pixie I drew that I thought complimented Whimsy
you were the sunlight
serenading a gray thicket from broken bits of blue
and I was fraying ends of yarn, held in place with dripping glue
you were made of something stronger
nettles, thorns, and earth, and something else I couldn’t touch

you were riddled starlight –
starbright beyond the weeping willow
and I, wishing to the window, braving
the eight-fingered witch and her silk-spun cauldron
slurping blood from the morning’s game

you were the braided wreath
of dandelion gathered in a field
of weeds, and when I was done
there were burrs on my clothes
and you were those

you were a ballad, a legend
I sang to the worms when the earth was too wet to breathe
you were my bow, strung with shoelace
and the arrow that pricked my pointer
for one hundred years of hapless dreams

mostly you were my shadow
a gray stain sometimes at my feet
in the thickest shade you drifted, probing
the night, coiling wicked shapes across the walls
it was a long time before I saw the peacock

and by then you were already changing.
I don’t know you as I once did
you are altered beyond recognition
to what end is irrelevant, for there is no way back
no matter how many conjured stars
that is the way of these things

yet still, you are