writer's block

april 2022

I wish to write about how I feel, today, tomorrow, anyday. but the shameful truth is, I don’t know where they went, the feelings. I lost them, abused them so that they

dried up, inflamed like the tender puffs and even lines over my right arm that can never be touched

again, never graced by lustful hands or graced by spaghetti, tulip, raglan, or cap

under my guidance, obedient, they bore so much that I look to the

stem and find crackle, bitter crackle, so I get to work weeding, for why

keep what is dead, but find them shackled to a stomach pink, round, soft and so I get to work sawing for why

eat what is raw but find the stomach strong, tersely veined like artfully cooked chicken and so my eyes start to glisten because I just want them gone, all gone for why

hold what is heavy only to sharpen futile muscles,

and then I blink but the tears begin to freeze and the head tilts up to ask where am I, why am I, how am I,

the knees start to bend and buckle and I crash right into the snow so cold, so deep yet so soft it might be pizza dough risen and fresh from an overzealous fridge but then

the snow turns to sand and my hands turn to gas, so I turn back to my work weeding but the weeds are gone replaced by chains, chains around my wrist wedged deep in the desert and petrified by the sun, I look up again and the sun is blazing my head is hazing my wrists are chafing all I wanted was them back or gone, back or gone, back or gone, but I pushed them away and they left, for why stay where you are undesired? why lose what will keep you alive? why live, if not to feel?

and while I was distracted by dress sleeves,

while I cradled foreign flowers back to life,

the feelings swept from my brain, my heart, my belly, the space between my legs,

collected and stacked neatly, they were sensible and

down they swirled, chaotic, through

the tender puff and open cuts and deep into the core of my earth, locked, stiff, unopenable but sharp, and now here i am trying to write a poem

and I can't.