Almost halfway through the month and I’ve managed to write zero poems (I don’t count the first one, as it was before the month started proper) …

Until last night, when a rambling rabbit hole lead down to a song I’d half-forgotten existed – forgotten just how much I love. I’ve been crying over it ever since, but I don’t need to think hard to understand it isn’t the song itself that’s making me cry.

At any rate, somewhere in the tears I found this:

~*~

She took all the love that a poor boy could give her
And left me to die

Like a fox on the run,
kit caught between clenched teeth.
Paws aren’t fast enough some days but
I keep running

Away from the picture of boxed
bodies stacked like shoes on a shelf, like
Legos, like the bottles of juice I’m trying
not to horde because it’s all he’ll drink, this kit
clenched between desperate teeth, and what happens
when the shelves run dry, when the bodies stack high
enough to reach the door I sit behind,

Blowing my nose and telling myself it’s just the pollen just
the pollen just the pollen not a plain white box come to
rest on the lawn while furious paws dig a hole in the dirt he left us in.

Like a lonely fox, boys, I need a place to hide.

~*~

~*~

Today I’m grateful for:

words

music

determination

pizza hut delivery

hot lemonade

sunshine

windows open

hope