Afraid

That I can’t do it

jumped into a speeding highway

hoping the traffic won’t kill

feels like it will in the million

butterflies beating fiercely in my chest

until it feels my heart will spill

all over the page in a mess

 

 

When

You’ve spent hours wondering if

media project means media as in

video or audio productions or

if media means public or like

in newspaper and radio

or social media and youtube

and you wonder if they let you into

the wrong class

and so the

stage is set

spotlight shines

curtains drawn

and drumroll..

the in-breath of

everything it wants to be

all its fears

and its dreams

The stage is set

lessons begun

assignments listed

requirements met

enrollment gifted

The stage is set

and classes doubled

distance tripled

and here.. I don’t know

anything yet.

This is how the ground shifts

How the atoms rearrange themselves

to make it fit

This is how the mind learns

how the pathways made are

meant to meet

This is how one foot stands

alone to take a step

This is how forward works

how the world pushes us onward and

This is how the ground shifts

in a gust of wind

and

That is how time flies

how its wings stretch before

it soars into open skies

An empty kind of smart

I think I’m an empty kind of smart

A broken kind of intellect

An over-wired machine with a

broken screen

A fast runner whizzing around

a locked maze

muchsight minus insight

strongfight minus always-right

I see so hard that I fail-to-see

like a blind traveller

stumbling across steps full of

potholes and ornamental gnomes

ready to trip me

like a puppet with half its strings

Attached- controlling steps

but not the rest

like a roller coaster ride and we are

strapped to the seat

time until

class,12 and  a half hours and

I’m already ready.

just

so if i try to crush the bottle

if i try to tip the glass

if  the ground beneath us crumbles

if it starts to spin too fast

with its questions made of statues

and its answers made of trash

and the words between us stumble

but the shadows will not last

its more litter at its edges

just more places we can stash

all the hurt we ‘never felt’

just the markings of a ‘past’

but it’s over now- I’m here

so I cannot play its cast