Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand, 
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

- Mark Strand

you’re all so talented and intelligent

it’s something you will have to carry with you forever. some wounds do not heal. some feelings nip at your heels for the rest of your life. but you’ve dealt with this better than anyone else I know. it’s a constant mourning process… sometimes the dark beast rears its head. in those times you must mourn. I’m proud of the way you mourn. few are ready to get in touch with this part of themselves. you’re not scared. you stare into the abyss. the abyss stares back. the dark beast rears its head. you’ve fashioned a leash on it and it lays purring at your feet.

I’m proud of who you are. even though you collapse, you eventually crawl back on your feet, ready to claw and scratch at anything that might help. you are blatantly desperate, blazing in your lack of shame, hair whipping round your face. you never had anything to lose. you cared too much then. you’ve now learned to detach. your knees are bloody from crawling out of hell. your hands were once clammy, you were anxious. now they are dry and cracked. I am really proud of you, and who you’ve become.

I will never love anything as much as I love you. resilient, hard headed, defiant, oversensitive, passionate, beautiful girl with waves crashing inside you as turbulent as the seas on the day you were born. the laziest person I know, because you won’t do anything you don’t love. the meanest person I know, because you are violently honest to the point of offense.

you’ve learned to walk tall and alone, to hold no one’s hand but your own. 

home is wherever I’m with you.