CALL ME BELOVED

“she had a heart too big for god to watch over it anymore”
– compos-dementis, who inspired today’s entry with her poem.

sitting back I think on the moments that brought me here,
the black moleskin notebook purchased at the university bookstore
that I raced to fill with the pretty nonsense that meant
everything to me – one became three, than four, workshops and
classes, poets and professors and good books that made the
world seem somehow more real than it had any right to.
I swear the air outside on stony Connecticut paths was electric
with the sense and calculated chaos of language, and with
my pen and with my books I could cement it, for myself, forever.

I found a poem online today, in a community I’ve long abandoned
and apparently the other writers too – it settled on top of
e-mail notifications, what I assumed yet another reminder
of when end rhymes were compulsory and ‘heart’ and
‘apart’ was the perfect way to say exactly how I felt,
but instead I’ve read the poem three times and I am still floored
for the girl – and the same jealous wave crashes because
these are the words I want to say, the letters I want to write
in the air so I can show everyone, shove it in their face and yell
that this is how it is – this is how it is,
and how what is and why it should be doesn’t matter
and the pain begins to bleed through, and I’m frustrated and winded
and nothing seems to matter anymore.