You Can Try If You Want To

Image: Annie Konst

Remember when I said that thing about trying, really trying to make something for real, and even if you think it’s bad just letting it be bad and letting it exist? Here I am putting it in practice right in front of your face.

For context & just bc it’s fun to tell you, last week I was going insane. Turns out I just needed a little down time. In my wobbly state I squeezed out a few bad poems and a short essay, essay pending revision.

I remember the days when I wouldn’t post anything on the internet unless it was perfection. When I would delete my writing after I finished it. Hours of work straight to the digital trash.

If you get nothing else from this post remember this: making anything is a triumph. And yes, these poems are here as the proof. Yes even if the thing you made is not what you hoped it would be, not up to some standard that prob takes a thousand hours to achieve or doesn’t perfectly express. I can’t even think of an end to this previous sentence. Express what? Who knows! Who cares! Onward.

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Housewifery

I serve myself at the table bc that’s where the sun is. Coffee poured into a squat porcelain cup. Quiche warmed and sat on a thick white plate. Crumbs whisked away by the grace of a tiny yellow sponge I cut in half and store in a teeny tiny extra small mason jar. Then I dress myself. House chores today. I’ll be going as a dutiful housewife from some recent past era that only ever kind of existed. Red lipstick, hair pulled up and away from my face. High hipped pleated pants, button down shirt tied at the waist, pink rubber gloves. You can see it. On my knees I scrub the dirt from the tub. I vacuum the window sills. This looks like me standing on a yellow chair with a hand vac trying not to fall. The games I have to play with myself. It’s not a chore it’s a role ok it’s a party listen it’s fun, there’s just no bubbly but the reward is cleanliness which is next to godliness I hear. I’m not sure why the next to part has to be there but ok. When I’m through I light a candle and say a prayer.

Four Leaf Clovers

Does Luck even like to be pressed in a book
& never seen again
I always thought she was saltier than that

Resistance 

The thing about letting go is
It’s not some big mental exercise
There’s no cliff to leap from it’s really just
Trying
And then seeing what happens next

Without judging it or yourself

She's Holding It Down

Moms puffing pillows dusting the fireplace
Resetting the stage
Vomit pulled from carpet

Her careful advice reincarnates 
As tongue quick energy that twines fat around her hips 
She’s always Kaboosing on to the next catastrophe
Trailing behind the train shelter for the crew

Organic cheese dusting drivers side seat
Sticky when she cries 
The only evidence 
But everything is fine