Poetry Series – What’s Happening?

I find myself looking around at the artists in the world in awe, asking myself how they can so freely share what they’re thinking, experiencing, and feeling. How do they feel when they consider that the person they wrote a song about is going to see it? Does everyone try to hide a portrait they painted in a moment of fixation? I considered the possibility that they just do it. Maybe if we just put ourselves out there we’ll see that the world doesn’t end just because you had a moment of vulnerability. Let me take some time to try on that approach.

What’s Happening?

Creepy crawling, under my skin,
I take a deep breath but no air comes in.
Lungs full of smoke, coughing exhale,
I call oxygen a joke as my skin turns pale.

My thoughts won’t become words,
everything I need to say.
Crashing into windows – birds,
already taken out before they see day.

What’s happening here,
are things falling into place?
Everything is moving so fast,
I didn’t know this was a race.

Everyone else is answering
all of the questions I never asked.
What’s happening from your perspective?
Because I feel like I’m juggling glass.

They’re using words with expectation,
expectation we never discussed.
Is that what they want for you,
or is that what you want for us?

I have a swiss cheese tongue
from all of the holes that I bit,
because I’m having so much fun
that I’m just going along with it.

Then in the moments that I find myself alone,
all of the questions creep back in.
I find them chilling me to the bone.
Tell me I’m not slipping again.

Creepy crawling under my skin,
will you press yourself against me
so I won’t have to feel it again?
At least for a while, until you leave.
I won’t call it a bandaid, just a reprieve.



Much love, until next time.