Poetry Dare: Day 12

Poetry needs to be brutally honest sometimes because it's our story.  It is the one that we tell, and honesty needs to be preserved in our stories, or else the stories no long have meaning.  I think a lot.  I think far too much, and, even worse, I think I'm right.  This poem comes from a free write (more like a free speak using a voice memo recorder and a phone), and I'm half tempted not to post it because I don't know what it means. It just feels a shame when I write a poem, and I don't even understand it.  This, however, is the way that poetry works.  My hope, then, is that someone finds something useful out of reading this poem.  Just remember not to ask too many questions because I'm not even sure I have the answers.



We stood out in the parking lot
underneath stars that must have blinked a million times.
Perhaps they were trying to say good night, to
bid us adieu, wait
until we could see them again, but
we wouldn't listen.

You told me about how wrong I was
throughout that entire night. I
didn't want to believe you.
In those moments with the stars
above blinking, I felt
my soul as old as time. Older
than the stars that shine above. I felt
like my soul had seen
countless wars
through the eons and past time to
before it could form these words.

And you wanted to tell me
that people can change.

I don't
understand
how anyone
can see the signs
but still be so blind.

My mother
told me that I was her rock.
She insisted
that I was strong, sturdy, would
not be broken, possibly eroded, but
this
is what happens to all good men.
They slowly and subtly change throughout
their lives.

I feel more like water.
Trying to find my way
around any situation, pour
past any tough surface, but
I've neglected my own.

I don't understand how
you
call me beautiful and still
have an honest smile.

I don't know if I'll ever
understand
where you're coming from.

I don't even know what
the point of these words are
because the last thing I said to you was
"Words
have no meaning anymore."

And I truly wanted to believe that.

Because words can't
tell me how to feel
right now. They can't
sympathize
with the tears my eyes
are shedding; they can't
hold me tight and tell me
everything's gonna be okay.

But you can't either.

I'm afraid the words I've placed in front of us
have grown rough and solid like stones. And I
like water
have been rushing up against them
trying to get through
to the other side.

Poetry Dare: Day 11

I had always thought that questions were these things that got smaller and smaller as we got older and older kind of like playgrounds as we grow up from being small to tall, but now that I'm seeing things from such a different vantage point, I realize that the questions themselves don't ever really go away.  However, I think that our ability to accept their inability to be answered increases.  I think we, as people, start to understand how nothing is understood.  I remember crying over not getting a gameboy or something of the like.  Now I understand crying over a human not getting food, clothing, water, or sleep.  The things we care about change; our questions change with them.



Why is
I don't know
an unacceptable answer?
I own so
many I don't knows,
I don't know
what to do with them all.
What will the future hold
I
When will I know if I've found love
don't
Why does evil exist
know
how I can make sense of all these
unanswered questions, but answers
have only seemed to me
good because of their utility.
Answers become the reasons to act, but
actions are answers, so
acting
will hold me over
until I understand.