I’m at the last bend
in the thirty-sixth lap of my life.
I feel like a dinosaur,
knowing how much things have changed.
I’ve changed too.
I have tan lines running like equatorial circles on my thighs.
I think I’ve earned them.
I have scars from falling on my face.
I earned those too.
I might have done without them though.
I also have some scars in my head.
Most I did nothing for.
Last I checked they were all fading.
I write poetry.
I’m not an activist poet
thought I might stir up a volcano in your fist-sized heart.
And sometimes in my poems I state my assertions,
standing with a torch flickering in the crosswind.
Most often though,
I write because I love the sound of words cascading around each other.
My poetry might cause your blood to thunder in the arteries,
might pickle your skin with goosebumps,
or cause your voice to get entangled in your mouth,
but unless you pull up your sleeves
and get your feet dirty,
these words are as effective
as a paperweight on a cloud.
I use logic like a crutch, I am told.
Blind belief never cut it for me.
It’s like sitting on a stool
with legs of sand.
I will challenge your assumptions,
and you should question mine.
If either’s found weak,
I’ll stick it to a boulder
and set it rolling down the slopes.
Let it crash into oblivion.
I would like to believe in a creator.
But then, logic and reason.
I write in letters so huge I can fill a page with a Haiku.
I think the font size is 24.
Larger than life? At least the handwriting is.
You might think I’m laidback or even reserved
while in my mind,
I’m plotting a backstory
to fit your frame.
Short term extrovert,
long term introvert.
Voices can wear me down,
grate my edges,
so excuse me
if after chilling out over a drink for a few hours,
I retreat to my cave
and zip the entrance for a day
or a week.
I need to recharge,
and filter out all the words soaked in my skin,
figure out which ones to weed out,
and which to keep.
Sometimes I’d just take the bicycle
and go for a spin.
That might clear the debris from my head.
And yes, these days I am careful,
I don’t want another scar.
NaPoWriMo 2017, Poem 14
Grains of thought 