Let’s talk poems.

These, my friends, aren’t poems. Poems have hidden structure, follow hidden rules, and are often really, really confusing. When I read poems, I usually have no idea what’s going on. If I’m listening aloud, I’ll nod and “aww,” when the truth of the matter is I only liked that one line, and I don’t get the ending. (Can you include some spark notes? And who invented the whole no-rhyming-poem-thing anyway?). 

When I write poems, I try to scramble words to make it sound more confusing. Yep, I “trick” people into thinking I’m some distance cousin of Emily Dickinson or a girl with an MFA under her belt. So instead of poems, think of these as stories that can have run-on sentences and weird imagery —no theme or falling action.

Perhaps just words that skew meaning, or make us create our own.

The Other Side of the World

They met at the other side of the world,

with dust and dirt and all things pure.

Strangers foreign to themselves,

they kept secrets from themselves and told each other

everything.

At the other side of the world, people

laugh at nearly nothing, and never cry

for all things worth it. And I was dropped off

on the dirt road, where I walked and walked

south of the sun, alone and completely complete,

burning trash and syncopated rhythms.

You stayed close to home, with the belief

that all things come: 5 o’clock, completed puzzles

and rooms  filled with lovers curled around the mouth,

swallowed by the strength of skin.

And we walked to the most beautiful

place in the world, and all I saw were

buildings and wire, metal and

a longing for something better than beautiful.