An ex-poet walks into a cafe
and surveys the familiar faces
of strangers.
Archetypes, doppelgängers, ghosts
spark recognition and the thinnest hope
of connecting
with words
with feelings
with humans
who make eye contact
even when it’s uncomfortable
How exactly does one become
an ex-poet?
i.
(lyric)
This verse, it died unfinished and became
a calcified, pearlescent mass inside
my gut. A lithopedion; unnamed
stone child whose mere existence I denied.
ii.
(epic)
Once upon a time, there lived
a young woman who believed naively
that her own chutzpah
was titanium armor.
A twisted wizard cast three wicked spells:
the first caused her to fall in love
the second made her a prisoner
the third promised that if she broke free
she would never write another word.
She had to wound him as she fled.
The woman, no longer young
remained adrift for years
unable to complete an odyssey for which
she could not write an ending.
iii.
(dramatic)
A: Nice to meet you, did I hear you’re a writer?
B: (swallows, looks down) I was.
A: (teasing out more) You were?
B: I was. I stopped.
A: Then you were never really a writer. Writers keep writing.
B: I was too depressed.
A: (deadpan incredulous) Too depressed. To write poetry? Isn’t that what depressed people do?!
B: (shrugs) I know, it sounds…
A: It just proves you were never really a writer. Case in point―what is this garbage poem? It stopped being a poem half a page ago and turned into a play where you read both parts like those weird competitions you did in high school.
B: Hey, I have trophies for that!
A: Well get over it, you’re forty-two.
B: (blinks) Fine.
So this ex-poet walks into a cafe,
surveys the familiar strange faces
makes uncomfortable eye contact
and thinks
perhaps
I’m back.