POETRY is sometimes the best way to say how you feel

this is a poem I wrote likeeeeeeeeeeeeee 6 months ago maybe more.

The Etiquette of Tragedy

Do we eat?
Tiny hunks of cheese and grapes slid around a plastic plate
and a napkin with a couple crackers,
at your Uncle John’s house in New Jersey,
they were the only things we had eaten in twenty four hours,
since our roommates had forced us to eat. They had gotten us
through the shock and rallied around us and passed around hugs like
the family they had become.
They took our minds off of the plane crash
when it could not stay off, and danced
around the kitchen and us like figure skaters,
they gave us jobs to occupy our confused hands and said
“that’s okay” when we said “I just can’t.” They fed us
and hugged your Aunt Eva when she showed up. I was surprised how Eva looked
not like your mother and remembering your mother’s dark curls,
I expected someone like her. Later
I realized how they were alike, their laugh was the same.
Can we hug and kiss, say things like “Happy Valentine’s Day?”
Is it selfish to be upset about our missed reservation and
the day we had looked forward to together?
We were going to spend the day in bed drinking champagne.
New York City instead, to bury your mother in a cemetery in Queens.
Is laughing okay?
Holding babies and thinking about other things besides sorrow?
Talking about the Gollum with Eva?
Learning about your mother’s Judaism and
her life growing up? Is it okay to talk about Safta
and the disgusting meals your mom told us about? The lung
and brains she had to sit at the kitchen table
and finish? And to laugh about it again,
like we did once with her around your kitchen table?
Is it okay to talk about anything
except the tragedy?
Is it okay to sleep close? Can I put my hand on your chest?
Do you want me close or far?
Can we kiss? Sensual and soft? Is it okay to feel passionate?
Are jokes alright and will you forgive me
if I made the wrong one?
Is it okay to stop worrying?
Is it okay to notice the little girl on the playground
and giggle at her cuteness?
Are distractions okay?
Trapped in the flux of mourning.


This is one I wrote in April RIGHT right right before my manuscript was due, the day of actually, and I still like it, I still think it's written pretty okay.

Birds Fall

We made the morning last longer
talked in bed and I moved my fingertips over your skin
like tree branches across the pigeon-colored sky.
We hadn’t put our feet on the carpet yet
as though we knew
that mourning would come.

The weight of the sun tried to sneak in bed
with us between the sheets and rub its legs
against ours bare under cotton,
but we ignored it and shoved it off the mattress.
As though we knew
that mourning would come.

Downstairs voices of those who had awoken
rang in the hallways and the mumbling
of the coffee pot started to spread
its aroma, but we stayed in bed.
As though we knew
that mourning would come.

In the United Kingdom, starlings fell
out of the sky, there was no known cause
but speculation that their flight pattern had changed
suddenly. They flapped broken wings on the ground
as though they knew
that mourning would come.

That night another flight pattern had changed
from “we’ll land shortly folks,”
to “God, oh God.”
We both startled awake at 3 am and stared at each other
as though we knew
that mourning would come.

More than one hundred birds rained down
from their cloud perches. There was no poison found in
their lungs, no toxins. Their graceful patterned flying
turned into falling
as though they knew
the mourning had come.


I'm trying to write more stuff, more new stuff, but sometimes I think maybe I should slow down and work on what I've got right now. I have so much material that I need to clean up and organize so probably I should just clear that stuff up and away and then deal with new stuff. maybe. we'll see.