ManicDDaily

Making Me Feel Better

I ask him, if I die–(if)—
would he hold me
till the last moment.

I know he will, though not
why I need to hear it — I have no illness, not
yet, but he’s not
right here and tears of an instant
jam me, their heat as tight
as clothes I should have
grown out of–and I feel again
a child, home alone, sick
and out of school for the day, when, shaken
by the hollow house, I would go
outside and sit upon the curb–there, out
by the mailbox–even fevered–
so that there would be places, I thought,
where I could run;
so that I would not, I hoped,
be trapped;
imagining in the narrows of corridor
and mind, some body, padded with shadow, blocking
my every egress.

Now, I’ve had so many friends–
I won’t count them–who’ve gone already, trapped
inside bodies that would not
hold them, not here, and he says
‘oh, darling–’

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I am posting the above for Anna Montgomery’s great prompt at dVerse Poets Pub “Meeting the Bar” on flow and creativity.  It’s a wonderful article on creative engagement, and how that brings a kind of energy to one’s life and work.  I was thinking here more about flow – my personal blocks and twists–and really how the mind flows too – though mine sloshes more than flows, I think – like a rather leaky bowl! 

(The picture, albeit without elephants, is original.  So, as always, all rights reserved.)

ps – kind of a draftish poem – maybe the end should refer simply to bodies “that would not hold them here, and he says, ‘oh darling–” I don’t know.   Sometimes things flow too fast. k.