So She Thinks She's a Poet

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Despite my lack of poetical genius, I shared three of my poems with you in March, and you had the good grace not to ask me to move to Europe and take up yak farming instead, for which I am eternally grateful. (I also told you I’d share some of my sister’s poems with you. My schedule and brain ended up getting away from me, and that didn’t happen, but I will be making good on my word in a couple weeks, provided nothing interferes.) 

My brain insists on coming up with awful poems at odd moments, so I feel it’s only fitting I share them with you. In this situation, I am the cat with the dead bird, and you are the person who must decide whether or not to break it to the cat that you don’t, in fact, like being given random dead birds. 

Before we get started, though, I might as well warn you that you can ask what the poem's title means, but it’s my secret and I shan’t tell. *smiles mysteriously* However, your speculations will amuse me, so feel free to guess away. 

1:11

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you must forgive me—

if you were stone, i’d lie beside you

and hold your hand, and tell in tears what i could not

breathe in your living ears. take not to heart

my silence, oh my love—

it does not mean that you aren’t stars to me

it but means night is hard for me

and day is hard in equal measure

and you are water to my thirst

but i am tantalus

and have offended gods.

'twas one indiscretion, small and passing;

judge me not.

cast me not out for flower picking—

my meadow-traipsing mind encased in

bone and dreams and sorrow. 'twas one passing fancy,

duly punished. 

'twas nothing consequential. i shall be well.

(i lie, he was the world to me.)

i would be true to you, in soothing and in seeming;

i would be honest. were i the sky

i would not veil the stars beneath my skin—

save on cloudy nights, when sorrow steals me again

for a passing swim in the styx, a dipping back to let the lethe

become my reality again, so for this second it won’t hurt

this sitting by you, without seeing you or knowing you.

(i want this life of acid longing to exist for ages.)

i want this pain to cherish another soul,

to leave mine be, for once.

i beg the heavens for reprieve,

so i can breathe and build soul-self, sole-self.

how have i offended the judges, the rulers? 

have i sinned that i should stand

at statue feet and stare into cold eyes, 

that i should beg for crumbs denied me and gifted dogs instead?

which fault brought down this stately glass

home upon my head, this castle built with mine own two minds?

what caused this shattering echo that drowns out thoughts?

days hide their time from me and make me question if

yesterday was yesterday or if tomorrow is today.

i mistake this month for another—this age for another. 

i am losing anchor. did i drink lotus tea—

was i untrue? did i forget?

did i love too much

and, in great love, offend the gods

in proving better love than passing fancies?

did i, in loving, bring down jealousy,

or was this heart too small, too stained

for worlds such as you?

i know nothing, save my mind—

you must forgive me. 

Oh good, the poem’s over. We can now give a collective sigh of relief. In the meantime, I shall leave you to your cringing, as I must now learn the art of yak farming. I have a feeling this knowledge will soon be necessary. *flops* 

What about you, my little coffee beans? Do you write poetry? Do you like reading poetry? Who is your favorite poet? (For me, I think it’s a tie between Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Edna St. Vincent Millay.)