Waking/Dreaming
Wed - Do you think Hypnos has insomnia, too? Thurs - “the nerves / frenzy feeding / on nothing” The most accurate description of a panic attack I have encountered. That line sank its teeth into me and I’m still nursing the puncture wounds. Fri - You’re never ready to meet new people. Friends of Friends at a little outdoor party with everyone wearing masks and no one was sure who smiled Sat - I stayed up all night. Not like Hypnos ever does his job, anyway. He was probably out. Sleeping around. Or at least pretending to- Sun - You never really recover From watching your first sun rise You’ll keep wanting to watch it again. It gets inside of you and sometimes You’ll swear up and down That you bleed starlight Mon - My boss said to me “I like you. I prefer a man of actions Not words” Little did he know, he hired a writer Tues - Hypnos and I got coffees at night And talked about All the sleep We should have gotten
What I’m trying to say
is that communication was never easy for me
I have a stutter Even simple words
Will break
On my tongue
Syllables shatter
Into half formed
Copies of
Themselves
A mouthful of
vernacular accidents
What I’m trying to say is
It's not any easier nowadays
With half of
Everyone’s face gone (and rightfully so)
But still it impedes
expression
So we get
Boiled down
To text
Lately it seems all I have of people
Are their words
And a profile picture
And I can take their word
For it that
They’re not mad
Just frustrated like
I am
But tone is conveyed poorly
On screen sometimes and a period
Means something different
At the end of a one word
Text.
What I’m trying to say is —
I’m Bad At Love Poems (Turn Off the Lights)
Turn off the lights and forget: I was never taught how to love gently. (Can that even be taught?) Forget that: I’m afraid I inherited this curse from the eyes of a bitter father who never questioned what he passed on. Turn off the lights and forget that: In the dim blue of some other man’s bedroom all I want is to pierce his skin tunnel past the heart and bury all my inheritance there in his ribs. So I can leave it behind in morning when I close the front door.
By Nicolas Troy