comfortable

Poets don’t live life on the edge
We’ve already broken ourselves over the cold steel at the corners of our senses
Cut to ribbons lying in the refuse bin at the bottom
Our pens like needles threaded through with the bits of ourselves still
remaining
We make of our lives a patchwork
Sewn together from scraps and shown to the world
like the collected and roughly thrown together perfection we present
to open minds dangling over their own edges waiting to be felled upon
just waiting to cut deeply with no safety nets below to catch what falls torn
heaving the weighted pieces on scraped shoulders
never strong enough to carry the entire load, so some of Us gets left behind
to be returned to later
ink-laden needle in hand
puncturing tattered edges of torn heart trying to create some flimsy mural
of unburdened ideals
shattered against the steel of reality…
is what we make of it
so what does your world look like poet?
Mine’s a hand-me-down thriftstore cardigan suit jacket
Custom-tailored to fit like perfection
To fit like sacramental garments and funeral shroud
With holes in the elbows covered by mismatched patches:
Left side sun-bleached to nearly pink retro paisley,
Right side pinstripes skewed at the center and bending inwards
Breast pocket with a hole at the bottom
So I can never hold onto the 2 cents some poet spared me unwittingly
Tossed in to save for later
When my own thoughts come up short-changed
Frayed sleeves just a little too short to cover my wrists when arms reach out for a grasp onto something new
So I find it’s more becoming to keep my hands at my sides
holding onto what I know best:
Just me
missing a few buttons so no matter how tightly I wrap myself up
It’s always open to chill, biting winds ripping through the strained seams
Too hot to wear on these humid florida days
And never much cover on the coldest
But this suit jacket’s comfort comes not from style, but familiarity
Wrapping over my shoulders like the ever so tight embrace I yearn for in so many words whispered
When not worn I rest my jacket on a thick wooden hanger on the outside of my closet door
Like the slightly swaying profile of a close friend, ever vigilant, and waiting for conversation
Or the faceless adversary of countless problems always there
For those too stressful days when you just need some prick in a tacky suit to stand up to and shout unanswered expletives at
And through this all it still hangs there
on the hook of my closet door waiting
For when I need to wrap myself in my own personalized patchwork perspective
Clothe myself in the reality I create in words sewn together
Threaded through pentips to rework the broken dreams still shattered at my feet
So what does your reality look like poet?
What do you call it?
I call mine comfortable
Like childhood memories of a 5 year old me holding my favorite teddy bear
The one dad bought for me the day I was gifted into this world
Treading nervously onto the orange carpet of a new room in a new house
And after just a single step in I knew I had found my room and so,
Seated on the windowsill overlooking the street on which I’d soon spend so much of my childhood my teddy bear stayed
While I went and told my father I found “My Room”
Comfortable like a solitary drunk night spent stumbling down empty streets
Greeted only by a midnight breeze
grazing both cheeks with a slight kiss before being whisked away to leave the smile of a city on another
comfortable like the soft purring of my cat’s greeting each day i return home
where that same tarnished hook hangs on my closet door
holding my silent and weather-worn best friend, confidante, lover, enemy and family
just waiting to be slipped on
so what does your world look like, poet?
What do you call it, poet?
How do you wear your word-built world so you can stand tall comfortably despite the weather?
Me?
over the left arm, then the right
fit to the nape of the neck and adjust the collar
comfortable