The Vomitorium
My gains feel meaningless to all I’ve lost
Every wish projected, returned
Pushed to the “wait” pile
There’s nothing I can make happen.
I pull the bulldozer towards me
The fastest route to smooshing
Is to want.
I’m a vacuum
You are somewhere under that
The only thing preventing me from being nothing once emptied
The only thing worth anything
I’ve been begging You for a purpose
And this is all You’ve given me
A wail.
Wail, son
Type your cries
Reflect my face as you despair at yours
Is this all I’m good for here?
Is it all I’ll be good for there?
Is there something else in me?
Or am I, by nature, empty?
Who can say.
What no eye has seen
Nor ear heard
Nor the heart of man imagined.
That sounds right
Because nothing I’ve ever imagined fits the bill
There’s an ache too deep for words
I don’t know what’s at the bottom of it
But yelling into the void it left
Is the only way to be myself.
All I can tell is that it’s vast
I hate that this isn’t even a poem
But it’s the only poem I can write
It’s just words
In small sentences
Incomplete thoughts
Sometimes the line breaks mean something, sometimes
They don’t
I love that there’s no arbiter for what a poem is
Except you.
You know this isn’t one.
Just like I do
But it’s all I’ve got. And these little half-stifled sobs
Aren’t coming across through words
This is an epic, dammit.
See how many stanzas it has?
Directly commensurate to the pain,
Because I would have stopped typing before now
If I could have
Ergo
My pain is epic
And you can’t argue.
Except, of course you can.
And you’re right, of course you’re right.
It’s all so self-indulgent
I’m not doing anything here
Couldn’t even convince myself this has a purpose
Except I’m still doing it.
And I started this by saying I wanted to do something that had a point
So I must still believe it’s possible
How does it feel? being carried around through my caverns
As I narrate? As a tear slides down my cheek
Around each new corner
As I hold your side of the conversation for you
Just to create dialogue
Just to give shape
To something I’ve never seen
I hate other people’s poetry
Because I hate other people’s observations
I’m the only subject I’ve ever found fascinating
And no one writes poems about me but me, so
I’m my favorite poet
And around this next corner
Somewhere
God
Because I always find I’m tracing his shape
As I trace the absence of my own.
There you are, Peter
Everything I’m not
Fullness and presence
Why do I have to be nothing for you to be something
Why must I be so completely emptied?
Will I ever be something?
I’m vomiting somewhere, internally,
At the lack of me
Maybe just a bit more
And I’ll be gone.
And I hate that this is good,
That the only good thing that ever came from me
Was less of me
If you look closely
You’ll see
That each line is a breath
Many of them are short
Because I’m hyperventilating
The long ones are unnatural
I don’t believe I’ve held your attention to the end
Maybe go back and re-read?
If you’re still here
Being a poet is stupid
Unless you have an audience,
Unless someone loves you,
Then it’s brilliant.
There, another trace of the emptiness.
I’ve got an audience of one
And He must love this, because it’s the only thing He’ll let me do
That’s not true, really
But also it is
And you’ll have to figure out how.
Speaking of vomit,
My editor is reading now
And that’s his main takeaway.
You’re trying to package vomit
Who will let you get away with that?
But see what a nice color
And can you truly say
That you’ve seen vomit just like it?
It has value to collectors.
My Father has whole jars
I don’t know why he keeps taking it.
Yes I do
It’s only epic
Because I decided it isn’t over.
Some will say that it could have been
Just back there
But I wouldn’t let it.
It will take you a moment to decide
If I led you back through a passage we’d already been down
Or conjured up a new one.
If I do my job right
We’ll be out of here before you can make up your mind
