rage fragment

I wish I could write anything about rage

but I can only write about wanting

things I will never have since things

in the past can’t be changed or given

//

back to anyone least of all me

who already has so much

but then I am lit

uncontrollably

//

and I rage I rage

until I can’t remember

why or how, or where I was

going with my smoky breath

//

and this poem. I wish I could write

anything about rage, but I can’t

so instead I am writing these unwieldy words.

Maybe they’ll be about rage. Maybe it’s nothing.

//

I am sitting alone and inevitable in the late afternoon

at the top of the steps of the hill on Cherry Street

where I like to sit, where I am sitting now, again

alone and watching a containership drag itself

//

across the bay that reminds me why I do sit

here on the grey days: the water.

I have written it before and I will now, again:

the water. I can see it from the corner

//

of every single block in this neighborhood

and it makes me feel “less alone,”

although, again, I am inevitably always.

This may actually be the last time for a while.

//

I am moving away from here in seven days.

I want, I do, to be filled by this. Rage.

But I don’t feel anything now, except “less alone.”

Can I write and not feel “less alone?”

//

It seems I feel simply. Rage.

But what can I say?

I am not in a fit of it now.

I am in the calm, the calm

//

before. I swear I do feel rage.

There’s so much and nothing left

worth saying.

Simply, I feel rage

//

and it groans in my stomach like flame.

I can’t hear anything else. So simple,

and yet not at all. What else can I say?

I am not feeling it now. I am not feeling

//

I am not feeling. Inevitable. Inev-

itable. In even this

moment, still. I know

I feel this rage simply

//

there is nothing

closed or opening,

breaking.

There is

//

nothing.

There is nothing.

I am sitting here

what else is there to say?

//

I rage. I rage

so simply I slip in and out, and that ship

hasn’t even crossed my sliver of vision.

Too quick to follow. I am so tired of lust.

//

I want this poem to be about rage.

Is this a poem? This is a poem if

I say it’s a poem. Is this a

poem? It is if I say. Is this?

//

It is, It is. Poems don’t need to burst

into flame. I want to write rain runoff,

a downward sloping hill, words falling

along the natural curve of Cherry Street

//

and dousing themselves in Elliot Bay.

Not every moment can burn. Some

times pass indefinitely. I am unable

to say how long one thought takes

//

or how much of life is lost to slow

thinking. How many minutes off

my life lost like minutes

for each cigarette or one too many

//

well anything. Who has time to pay

attention? Let me breathe and think.

I’ve gotten good at absolutely nothing, at

being nowhere. When I was younger

//

my only hobby was sitting still.

How to say, how to say still.

I don’t have to explain anything to you.

You know, you know but let me be.

//

The concrete is coarse on my inner wrists,

the edge of the step rounded.

I do forget all of what the world feels like

whenever I don’t want to be here any more

//

but you you I know life & words

do flame up and now a gust of wind.

This poem was included in my book "I want you to feel ugly, too," which can be read on issuu.

Read Part 2 of this poem

Read Part 3 of this poem