The Poetry Marathon

In the middle of the night

I awoke and thought of you.

Now, here’s the thing:

I’ve never been a dreamer.

I’ve never fluttered to sleep

With visions of far off lands

Or nearby waters.

When you close

Your eyes to static,

You can’t wish your way

To a life where you’re

Dreaming in Monet.

But in the dead of night,

My mind awakened and

You were my first thought.

So if I could dream

Of wonderful things,

I’d dream of you a lot.

I love you, but I’m not a thief

Despite the masses disbelief

No matter what we tend to think

You do not belong to me

We’ve always known to some degree

The way this venture had to be

I can’t bring artillery

We’re better than a robbery

I want you, but you’re not a need

Even though my heart shall bleed

I cannot be the wrecking ball

I can’t set fire to it all

Together we’re a roaring flame

On my own, I’m just a flicker

And no matter how I try

I can’t make my courage bigger

“They love me” never sounds the same

When followed by, “You’ll see.

Any day now, I can tell

They’ll leave their wife for me.”

“I think the genes for being an artist and mentally ill aren’t just related, they are the same gene” – Neil Hilborn

Robin Williams

Chester Bennington

Marilyn Monroe

Kurt Cobain

Sylvia Plath

Ernest Hemingway

Vincent Van Gogh

Virginia Woolf

and countless others

It’s a shame they can’t keep us all from high places

I am Aphrodite

I will draw you in

You won’t be able to help yourself

Every piece of you will want to love me

But I am also Medusa

Even if I love you

I will turn your heart to stone

I will be the last thing you ever love

I am Prometheus

I will give you more fire than you’ve known in a lifetime

But I am Icarus

Being with me means flying too close to the sun

I am Apollo

My way with words will drown you

But I am also Midas

Except I turn everything I touch to pain

Every day

Same in, same out

Made to feel much smaller

Than the littlest mouse

Oh Cinderella, Cinderella!

The bell begins to chime

They wonder where their food is

Don’t I know it’s dinnertime?

Cinderella, Cinderella!

Why’s the kitchen dirty?

Why’d I put the kids to bed?

I know that it’s too early

Cinderella, Cinderella!

The bell rings on and on

While mother brings her latest beau

Lance, or Mark, Or John

Cinderella, Cinderella!

You’re asking for it this time

The baby’s crying yet again

Think! You’re bloody nine!

You should have this down by now

Learned your fucking lesson

What do you mean, you can’t

You don’t have depression!

That’s ridiculous, it’s crazy

Put on your big girl panties

Cinderella, Cinderella!

Time to be a nanny

My sisters and I grew up in the same state

The same town

The same house

But we had very different childhoods

We had the same brother

But he was 1 year older than me

10 years older than them

And liked a bit of fight with his afternoon delight

We had the same mother

But she raised me from birth

And I stayed home to raise them

For nearly a decade

We had the same father

Except he was my step-father

So when he got his own kids

Just call my Cinderella

When I turned 16

My mother bought me a car

So that I could drive “the girls”

Wherever they needed to go

When they turned 16

She bought them cars

So they could drive

For freedom’s sake

It used to be

Whenever my sisters and I

Spoke of our childhood

I couldn’t understand the disconnect

How I could feel such disdain

For the home that they loved

The brother they grieved

The parents they’d die for

And then I remember

My sisters and I grew up in the same state

The same town

The same house

But we had very different childhoods

2 days after my great-grandmother died

My little sister stood in her crib

Pointing, giggling, and saying her name

I hope she was right

I hope ghosts are real

It’ll be fun

Haunting those who’ve haunted me

If I ever take the yee-

I mean leap

Then you won’t see it comin

I’ll turn my world around

I mean upside down

That is to say the ground

Will be on top of me

Instead of underneath my feet

But that’s only if I ever get

The strength to take the lea- yeet

I’m sorry in advance

For the shock that it’ll be

There’ll be no 9-1-1 call

No ambulance parked in the street

I’ll find the tallest bridge in Tennessee

Make sure I don’t survive

This will not be a cry for help

It’ll be so I can die

I can’t write you a letter

I’m sorry, I just can’t

Writing it would take a depth of

Courage I don’t have

And I should know, I’ve tried

At least a dozen times

“Hey bestie, please don’t hate me.

I couldn’t live this lie.”

Once I even got to almost 50 lines

The problem is, I’ve been Dear Jane-d

That is to say, I know the pain

Reading in a letter

That you won’t see them again

And at the time, I wished them dead

Ironic, now, I can’t deny

But I’d have thought much differently

If ever they had actually died

I can’t Dear Bestie one more time

You can’t learn in a letter

So I told you to your face

You said it wasn’t news to you

You’ve always known that was the case

And then you said it’d shatter you

Your heart hit with a bomb

And then you said I’d go to hell

Guess we believe in different gods

High of 92 degrees

Low of 54

High likelihood of ending

In a puddle on the floor

Hot and high humidity

At 89 percent

Near certainty of winding up

In existential dread

Expect an inch of snow today

‘Cause fuck you, it’s my forecast

To be riddled with anxiety

About things in the past

To spend the whole day writhing

In every sort of pain

Sunrise 6:19 am

Cloudy, chance of rain

If I walked through my mirror

Imagine what would lie in wait

Everything just opposite

Of my life today

I would step through the frame

To see a bedroom free of clutter

A phone call coming in

From my loving, caring mother

My sisters in the living room

To help me choose an outfit

There’s a line of suitors out the door

I can count that high, but can’t pronounce it

I don’t need to go to work today

I already won the lottery

I work anyway, ‘cause I’m artist

They say a downright prodigy

I can do the things I love again

My body feels no pain

And every ounce of anguish

Has simply gone away