If feels like this
Paper.
This paper,
I mean.
I'll explain.
Sorry.
Something's in my throat.
It's cold in here,
Isn't it?
How are you?
Oh,
Yes,
Sorry.
This is what it feels like...
Would you like some coffee?
It's bad,
It's really bad
But I would take anything over this.
Perhaps that's why
I'm on my third cup.
I'd take a slap.
Maybe a bullet in the gut.
Little more pain beneath
The place it hurts the most.
You don't tell them
What it feels like
When you're convulsing on the floor,
With a one-size fits all
Cavity in your stomach.
Sorry.
I'm not mad at you.
I would just rather be anywhere else
But reading this poem right now.
I would leave
But I live here.
This ugly off white paper,
Specks of that
Second and third cup
Of office coffee
Freckled in brown on the page.
Bookmark tucked somewhere midway
On a chapter I don't want to be on.
Which feels like this:
Like the soft tissue
That was my stomach
Erupted into flakes of ash;
The spark catching flame
From a paper heart.
Did you know I have a paper heart?
Someone told me that once.
The kind of heart
You only read
Unfolded,
In paper and ink,
That you hold in your hand
Until the sweat
Of your fingertips
Wrinkle the pages.
This eruption of grammatical inaccuracy,
This poem without rhyme
Or rules,
But a map.
A map constructed
By a five year old fist
Wielding a crayon.
The human attached,
(Also five),
Looked out the window
From her booster seat,
And colored herself
Into the lights that passed by.
Swinging from lamppost
To telephone wire,
Like that cartoon she can't remember.
Because the girl with the crayon
Isn't five anymore,
And she finds that the
Tangled catastrophe of squiggles
In the map she drew
Fifteen years ago
Was far more prophetic a picture
Than she would like to admit.
And she is the fly entangled
In the cobwebbed scribbles.
Her wriggling,
Pathetic efforts
Buy her enough time
To make the Spider laugh before lunch.
I'm sorry?
How does it feel?
Does it matter how it feels
As long as it entertains?
Not funny?
I suppose not.
If that's the case,
Then let me ask you now:
If everyone you know,
Everyone,
Were like paper hearts
That you keep in a bundle
Like the rest of your papers
You hold
But never re-read,
Every "I'll always be there" note,
Am I there?
Will I "always be there" too?
If you reach in your pocket,
Can you still slit your finger
On my sharp corners
If you're not careful,
Or am I leathery and worn?
Does it matter how it feels?
Or do you just feel it?
Like slipping on a shirt.
Not because you must,
Not because it feels nice,
Because
You just
Do.
The eruption was vast,
Bright,
Scorching,
Beautiful
And intimately tortuous.
But what now?
Now the ashes
Are just
There.
Accumulated in a box
Of some cremated idea,
Or hope,
Or inside joke,
Or "I'm here"
Scribbled and folded
Into a paper heart.
Sorry,
You were asking me a question.
I got side tracked.
It's getting warmer in here.
Alright here is my answer:
Honestly,
If I could place you in a printer
Scanning all your habits,
Fears,
Hiccups,
Your smell,
The shuffle of your sandals
Against the cement
As you walk up the drive way,
The wrinkles that form
Above your eye brows
When I say something
You pretend wasn't cleaver,
The corners of your eyes
When they burn red
In the weight of my words.
If I could capture all of this,
I would save a file
Titled, "You",
Copy and paste
And upload you to every hard-drive,
With every rhyme-less poem
I've ever written,
Send you to every account,
And print two copies
Incase one burned.
But I can't.
Simply put,
The worst part of it all
Is that I cannot save you.
There is only one
Hand written,
God breathed,
Signed and dated,
With your birth,
And death,
One translation,
One copy,
One page of depth and humanity
That no one but your author
Can fully understand.
Full of errors
And scribbles
And bleeding in red ink
From love
Unfathomable,
Unconditional,
Unlimited,
Within this limited,
One copy,
Hand written,
God breathed
Piece of poetry
Who is you.
Whom I cannot scan
And back up
And print
And copy
And paste.
You whom I cannot save,
Are saved.
Alright.
Unfold this origami
Of a heart in your pocket.
Smooth out the creases,
And tape the fraying edges.
Fold me into a paper plane
And toss me.
Let the molecules in the air
Carry me
Somewhere you'll never come back.
Aim well;
You only have one shot.
And don't look behind you
To see where I land.
This is what it feels like:
I'm torn.
But I'm saved.
That's all.
Thank you for this talk.
