Brooding
A Pandemic Poem
I’ve spent the last year folding in on myself
As some feeble attempt to get rid of this body.
Passively, of course, like some tidy little origami bird
As if the paper that makes me would change with the shape
rather than the dull green which constitutes me.
The words that once kept me company
Stopped dropping by. Almost like
I lost my voice and never found it again.
As if, when I speak, it’s not a conglomerate
Of every waking moment of mine —
How could I ever think such a thing?
Mortality gorges on life straight
From the vein so long I shrivel up. The thought slides
Under the door to make itself known,
At times with those friends of his,
And sometimes alone. I relapse anyway.
Meaning has slipped out like some snuffed
Candle wick outliving its wax.
Like a silent goodbye, and though I try,
Purpose can’t even spare a knock. The
Clock ticks by and its tendrils prick this skin.
The indentations in the carpet on my floor
Should tell you everything you need to know about
Restlessness —
(one of the trails leads to my bedroom window)
— About more than the times I’ve walked from my desk to my kitchen
With the lights turned off, my feet far too capable of
Navigating these walls like some self-imposed prison.
How many lifetimes have I watched these leaves change color now?
I think I’ve only seen this world turn through window panes. The
New one, that is. The one they keep talking about. The one
That’s meant to be a different kind of normal.
But to exist right now is to inhabit a feeling
Of which refuses to be named —
Some quiet, unknowable thing.
On the bad days, I lie in bed with all the light blocked out
Wishing that, for the past two years, I had crawled into
Some deep-drilled hole of my own volition. Sucking gently but
Fervently on that sweet secret nectar released by well-kept roots,
Incubating until this body knows to unearth itself.
Hatching into this new place, I feel
Like those brooding cicadas
Had they shown up shy of their seventeen years,
Borne too early out of this ground.
I wonder why these wings won’t fly.
I wonder why I am alone.
Thanks for reading! Wishing y’all wellness and health. ❤
