have you ever done
spring cleaning?
emptied your closet and
dusted the house,
sighing as you plug the vacuum
into yet another room because
mother refuses to admit that
spring has sprung until
YOU spring out of bed and
take a sponge to the windows,
overlooking what is
really spring.
I wonder if i
could spring clean
my memories.
take a duster to the
shelves of my
heart / mind / spirit,
plug up the leaks in my
skin.
yes, it is springtime, but,
my head is a cramped
attic of stifled summer
heartbreak,
a cobwebbed cabin
snowed in by winter
loneliness
even autumn has been tainted.
I used to love
autumn.
the birds chirp outside my foggy window.
it doesn’t matter/
the smell of all these
synthetic lemons
is making me
sick.
bees buzz, and
the azaleas attempt to
bloom.
-I wish they would just
quit.
they do this every
year-
it never works.
I do this every year.
it never works.
the resilience of nature
taunts me,
maybe I am from
some alternate universe,
one where ghosts cling like
wet t-shirts and
sticky saran wrap,
cementing into your psyche until
the april showers don’t matter
because you can’t even
hear them over
the rumbling of
regret.
I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING
ANYMORE.
I left the beach
years ago, only
to leave me drowning
in whatever ocean
feels like swallowing me
next,
SPIT ME OUT
I want to tell
the world,
vacate the
air that i
am trying so hard to
breathe.
but even if
I clear the air
this year,
spring will come
around again, and
the past will reinvent itself on
new shelves, stowing its contorted body
in the vulnerable corners of
my mind-
an unceasing echo
burning the truth into my
heart
as if I am livestock
branded for
slaughter-
singing springtime’s
bittersweet harmonies
into my melancholy
ears.
For more poetry, visit Poetry: Nurture and Nourish
