Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:
- My spoken voice
- My raw poems.
Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!
For Anne & Maxine
Why is it that the dead
Never listen to my pillow talk?
I am tired, but can’t sleep
Again and again and again.
You snore next to me
And occasionally twitch
As the dog snuggles in between us,
Released from her crate
Because she cries so much.
Again and again and again,
Why is that my whines
Never wake anyone up?
Not even myself.
“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me” If by aren’t allowed, you mean you forbid it, then who are you to forbid? If by write, you mean think, tell stories, try to understand, to recreate you in a way that isn’t such a jackass, I’m sorry, but you can only be improved, and you’re missing out. The you on the page is so much better than the you in life. If by me you mean just you, I’m sorry, but stories (even characters, even real-life characters) are bigger than just one me, just one you, just one. None of us are just one. Why don’t you try to imagine what it’s like to not have a Lexus and enough money to have your back shaved? Why don’t you try to imagine what it’s like to listen to you asking someone if they are ‘really an American,’ or telling them they look like a pumpkin because they’re wearing an orange dress. What it’s like to hold a given-to-you bouquet and know that it will wilt because you don’t have the water to let it survive, to go in the shower and pray for warmth? Why don’t you imagine what it’s like to live bigger than who you are, trying to push into who you are meant to be? Imagine that’s more than a Lexus. Why don’t you imagine? I am not allowed to write about you. I write about you constantly even when you don’t realize. You are the grit between my teeth.
Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.
The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.