So, this is the poem that I will end up writing
when no other poem is willing to do the work.
This is the poem I write when I'm past not
being able to sleep and I'm beyond
even trying. This is born of body burnout.
This unfolds as I unpack myself from
bags beneath by eyes.This is an ugly poem
unfolding from ugliness.
In this poem, I'll make an ambiguous allusion
to someone who is missing. The kitchen
feels suddenly too small.
This may be one of a few kinds of resentful:
parental, psychosocial, rebel-without-a-cause sentimental
but the poem blames something for what it is.
This poem is to say I am not a talented poet.
I'm a poet with a stammer, a non-poet, speech impaired,
a poet with neither the rage nor the riot.
So this poem may even plagiarise, for
not even poets have measured how much
the heart can hold. -Zelda Fitzgerald.
This poem throws itself down the stairs.
It burns down the asylum with stolen words inside.
How do I urge this poem to do better?
I can't, I can only keep writing it.
Writing out my resentment, my restlessness.
Wretchedness, Wanting. I can even break
linguistic, grammatical and syntactical
regulations By capitalising some arbitra-
ry Words and messing with enjambewhatnow.
This poem has found a neologism.
In this poem I CAN RAISE MY VOICE
for my wanting, and then in the same poem
shut my voice into a music box
to leave on your nightstand.
This poem has managed a neat trick. Illusion?
Some rhetoric magic. Some see a rabbit appear from
nowhere. Others see a girl being sawed in half.
.
The best (- though, at what?) could see both
but know it's not really about that.
They know it's about appearing as something
that are you not and that's a craft in itself.
As I or this poem already told you,
I am not a talented poet. I am just a girl
masquerading as someone she's not,
because she doesn't know what she is yet
or wants to be or could be, yet.
She and this poem may seem to have more
to them, to be even interesting,
but both are waiting for you to grow bored.
"
