The Poetry Marathon

I think maybe I am a fool.

I wanted to say, “I am a fool” with an exclamation point.

But, as I began to declare it, I thought

“I think maybe I am. I think maybe I am a fool.” exclamation point.

I am often fooled, so maybe by definition, I am a fool.

I am fooled by sweet faces and kind words and promises not in writing, and even promises in writing that are unenforceable. I am fooled by those kind of people who fain self deprecation when they show you their ugly insides. I am fooled by the dissonance of their words to their slightnesses and ultimately their true behaviors. I am fooled by kindness turned to raging victim stances. I am fooled by people who say they are one thing to the world and reveal their viciousnesses in private to me over and over and over.. simultaneously.

I am fooled by the vast pendulum swing,

and how desperately people hold onto their side.

I am fooled that I might be welcomed at either end.

I am fooled by the mianspiritednesses of people

who will not stop until their way is the only way.

I am fooled by my need to believe a person who says they are good, and does not practice being good, but continues to say they are good. I am actually completely baffled by those, so maybe I am a fool… a simple fool who trusts people to be who they say they are with corresponding energies, not the wink wink nudge nudge ones  who laugh a bit under their breath when they promise to annihilate you for calling them into the light, who do annihilate you when their cover is pulled off.

Exclamation point.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 1pm.

Knowledge is balanced.

It is both good and not so.

Knowledge does not take sides.

It doesn’t need to take a side.

It simply receives facts with no judgement.

Knowledge is like water.

It is still and solitary, yet infinitely capable.

The more it flows, the more powerful it becomes.

The more you talk of having knowledge

the more you realize how much of it

you have not yet attained.

Hold onto its core.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 12pm

She doesn’t take my calls anymore. She “… just doesn’t feel like talking right now.”  ever. Her needs are bigger now than a year ago; her wants are small and mostly focused on ignoring her needs.

I don’t know her anymore, It has been a year, and I don’t know her anymore. That is one of her wants, me not knowing her anymore, me not checking in to make sure she is eating and drinking water, and taking  her medications. She likes the quiet of me not checking. She likes the peace of eating  Malamars for dinner, unquestionably. She likes the absence of me, and this thrills the will hovering otherchildren so much that they brought in a puppy. They feed it, and put it out to potty, and leave it on her lap all day and night…

anything to keep her from picking up the phone and remembering that she loves me.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 11am

We were not real… not really real. I mean, you were real, as in a real person, and I was real, as in a real person, but we as a we were not real. We couldn’t have been. We wouldn’t  have survived. Well, we didn’t survive in the sense that  we are not we anymore. But, just as fragile human bodies with human egos and crystal thin psyches, we would have, should have disintegrated, or smashed each other’s humannesses against our irons. We should not  have survived My Monster… your prodding.

Did we die in a sense? Did we not survive the I of us and the you of us? Did we not survive? Maybe we didn’t.

I remember telling you that the Monster of Me will stay caged now, not even a nod to the most begging whisper of a tease of you, not a pull from your whiff. you agreed. your bulging pantydandies would choose sleep as well.

This must be the not surviving I am certain we did. This must be the death… the death of My Monster. The refusal of your press.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 10am

… we went to the store and bought a big blow up pool, white and light blue. We filled it with air, then filled it with water. You were giddy! You marched, jumped, danced, stole the hose and drenched us all. You played hard, laughingly.

When your lips went blue, and shivers overtook you, we ran a warm bath, made simple dinner, and you tumbled around the living room floor with your brothers. Then, you crawled into my lap and we both fell asleep to the big boys playing video games,

It was a really good day for brothers, sticksword fighting, running, chasing… a really good last day together.

I took photos all day. I didn’t realize they would be the last. There were never anymore of us all together.

I hope somewhere inside you, some part of that last day still lives. I hope you will remember it again when you are grown and we find you.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 9am

He wakes in early afternoon, washes his face, pokes around in the fridge – doesn’t eat, lumbers to the ps and sofa, yawns, starts it all up. (Summer schedule.). He is big, tall. He hasn’t caught up to himself, probably won’t  for a few years.

He is quiet, shuffles through messages, invites, “streaming conditions” .Social obligations covered, he engages me, the maker of food, and bringer of stuff he needs and wants (teenager equations), “Gramma, how long have we been sheltering at home? I think I need to find some people. I need some people.”

His profound self actualization jars me, “I think I need some people, too, but it isn’t safe to be around other people yet. I’m sorry.”

“Well, let’s be more peopley with each other then. Let’s bring back game night.”

He jars me again. When exactly did game night stop…? “Yeah, let’s bring back game night. How about Friday nights?”

Yeah. Friday nights.”

He plays video games, watches anime, streams for a while… finally eats, reads part of his summer reading book assigned back in March when the world closed.

“Cam, are you ready for game night? Want a pizza? What game do you want to play?”

“I thought you said Fridays?”

“It is Friday.”

“Well, you wanna just watch me play this with my friends instead… and eat pizza?”

“Sure, Buddy. Will that be peopley enough for you?”

“Yeah, that works. We can play games next Friday.”

He plays until 2am. I sleep on the sofa next to him. We people together.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 8am

I don’t seem to know a lot about a lot of things these days since all the bombs, since we lost Dad and I rarely feel him anymore, since the gun and the takings and the raging hot, impotent blood, since Mom’s slipping awayness, since the mass release of the damagers… I don’t seem to know a lot about a lot of things.

Associations are outdated, overused, stale, like telling a story out of  habit… rehearsed. I don’t know a lot about a lot of things these days, but I know I have stopped telling those tales, stopped trying to keep things alive that want to die, that need to die, that died a long time back, but still need to be laid to rest.

This is the funeral time, the memorial time, the reflective time between death and burial. I’m picking flowers and readying myself, preparing to open up the earth and lay it all down. Then, there will be some space for knowing again. Then, I am certain I will know more about more things again.

I am certain new stories are coming…

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 7am

I stretch in my chair. Sunrises over Maui. Daylight takes the night.

Green replaces dark. Blue lives where black ruled the sky. Mynahs and dove wake.

Masked, untouchable, morning walkers find their pace, unfamiliarly.

Everything’s the same, and then nothing is the same, but steadfast Maui.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 6am

He says, “Gramma, that’s not what I said, and if it is, it isn’t what I meant!”

He isn’t a little  boy anymore.

He articulates, “I am ready for some freedoms from you, and I think they should be…”

He is making his way into independence, feeling his way into young adulthood.

I observe, hold back, give space.

It is a tricky tightrope

tough to balance.

I fail, a lot.

He is untying the proverbial apron strings, as it should be.

He vacillates, “Gramma, will you sing to me and rub my hands?”

Some things will remain…

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 5am

My obsession…

the tiny masochist of you

scurrying in your own terrified delight

under my palm.

The knowing of you crawling around

in the hollow of my hand

pleases me more than I am willing to tell.

My whim is to leave you there

to enjoy feeling the scratch and eventual sprawl

of you over my lifeline.

Ask for air when this day is gone.

Until then, every stone step you take

you are collared and chained to me

for me

dancing blissful gypsy s’ in circles

for only me.

Nothing is anything

if not an extension

of you for Me.

Nothing is anything

if not an extension

of Myself for you.

Elizabeth Fellows

6/27/2020, 4am