Springtime Is So Confusing

I keep tripping over my heart, and when I pick myself back up off the ground I find that I've forgotten my original destination.

* * *

First, a disclaimer: I write what I write, and if I feel anything about you in particular, I'll tell you. These poems are not about any one man or the collective, "men." They're meant to capture how someone might feel about another someone. Sure, I've felt these things myself, or I couldn't have written them. But the quality of my feelings changes from moment to moment. The poems represent how I might felt have felt at a particular time and under particular circumstances. I am a different person now than I was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.

Second, damned if I understand their meaning, anyway. My feelings in this matter are fleeting, and maybe the poems are really a way of representing how in spring, little storms blow through.

Third, I'm sorry to foist my poems on you. I am not a poet.

I

Stand Off

Well, you deserved it,
wouldn't you say?
Not that you really feel it,
that little bruise I gave to you.
Nothing hurts you.
All you feel is dread.

I feel it too --
the dread. I feel it
whenever you're around me.

I thought that you were different.
I thought that every person on this earth was different, too,
just as every star in the galaxy is different,
just as every mote of dust
is unique unto itself.

II

Dredge

You are unique unto yourself:
that's what I prize in you.
Deep, in you.
A prize unto yourself
so deep
I'll never dredge it up.
You require too much of me, and I --
I want too much of you.









III

Clash

Are you tender?
I am odd.
I'm seeking tenderness in others.
I am very tender.
You are very odd.