Gifts and Wishes

If math settled in my brain

the way words seem to

if they stuck in neat piles

Legos of Logos that on occasion

rearrange into something startling

and sensible

instead of these letters of nonsense

(What kind of word is sentimentality?

It sounds like thinking but it's not

It's more like crazy all mental

and sensed out- not thinking.)

Perhaps if my synapses and these symbols

pi and infinity

had a bit more chemistry

I could be something

someone I suppose but in numbers

it wouldn't matter

I would be x or y

the independent or dependent

I wish someone would tell me

someone for whom the numbers march

towards their inevitable equal end

which I am

Independent or dependent.

All I can do is take apart the words

and wonder which is better

to be a pendant or a pedant

I could swing along the edge of a cord

a sparkling something for someone's decoration

but I fear that by thinking of it I have sold my chance

a pedant it shall be.

Chances - I feel i would win the game

If I only knew the rules

could crunch the numbers as they run

I could come out lucky in this lottery of love.

But as I cannot I will write of it.

Fear

There is something about

not writing

that makes me nervous

I wonder about it in still moments

between the talking or folding

and I wonder if my thinking

would be different if I were still writing

I think about it as a microscope

or a telescope perhaps

telling me tiny truths in larger crowds

or making simple statements about the stars

Neither of these are really true

I'm out of practice I'm sorry

but rather it's more that writing is the lens

it bends all the scattered moments of my day

into a beam all tight and focused

bright enough to burn

and now I am merely driftwood

with the sand piling up around me and

it's nice you know.

like burying your toes in the sand

and you flex against the weight of it

and pretend for a second that you cannot stand again

This is what I am pretending

or at least telling myself that I am pretending.

In the middle of the afternoon

when things are bright and busy and

I have no spare hand to guide my thoughts

the sentence hits me like a tripwire

and my breath is lost.

What if I cannot write anymore.

I am not writing because I cannot.

Free

The funny thing about freedom is

there is no one to tell you how not to

(fall in love

wreck a car

forget who you are)

I want to slip out the window

run my feet along the slick tiles

and not let anyone know

at least not for a little while

eventually I guess

I would have to confess

to tell them all the sparkling news

but for now the shine is so sharp

I keep it tucked tight against my heart

and feel it cut just a bit with each breath

liking the sting of how my skin stretches

(O skin mine you cannot stretch forever)

and I breathe deeper and deeper

driving the iced light against my skin

and laughing do it over again

because when you are free there is no one

to tell you how not to be

(reckless

and crazy

a taste of instability)

and I have finally done it I'm free

so I shall climb into the night

and into the shadows I shall whisper

because it is too early to scream

the news out over the city streets

but on the tile before I make my final leap

I shall disturb the swallow's sleep

because when you are free there is

no reason not to be

(whoever you choose

nothing to lose

you've broken loose)

So I'll take the final jump and see

how far these wings take me