Poetry

Monthly Post

Is it obsessive-compulsive behavior to post here each month for the sake of writing somewhat regularly? Or is it simply hope? Perhaps this- once a source of joy, a shared mission, will feel that way again, somehow.

another month

by which to create

Representation

If you step in the logical flaw rabbit hole

of proclaiming to represent

ALL PEOPLE WITH DIABETES!!!!!,

then the least you can do is

own it.

 

Was your six-figure “non-profit executive” salary there

to represent Shane Patrick Boyle

when Go Fund Me fell fifty dollars short?

 

Have you ever seen a human being in DKA,

breathing labored, blood poisoned?

Would you look her in the eye

and still have the audacity to suggest,

“This could all be easier

if you just took the bus to Walmart,

bought cheap insulin there,

took a wild guess at a 3:52 am dose

of one of the most powerful Rx’s on earth.”

 

Her breathing is labored.

Her blood is poisoned.

There is no more room on this bus.

 

I’ve written long enough

to know that I, too,

have made mistakes.

The ‘disease warrior’ metaphors

The representation claims

Forgetting to check my privilege

at the coat rack

Running my mouth too loudly

to listen

 

How can we pretend to represent

all people with diabetes

when we have strong Wi-Fi connections

the acquired ability to read and write

the color of the skin we were born with

the restocked fridge,

while so many of our diabetes brothers and sisters

are dying slowly and painfully

without access to the prescribed air

we breathe?

 

Our stories are the only ones we can tell fully.

To say otherwise is to snuff out others’ lights

which have already borne enough pain.

 

There has to be a better way

to make room on this bus.

 

 

This is also for

writing shitty, third-string poetry. boldly dubbing it ‘poetry’ anyway. then rhyming poetry with poetry in a so-called poem. knowing that we all have to start somewhere and this is your clean slate. the previous writer at the coffee shop gifted a warm window seat, the free Wi-Fi password, and a slightly weathered stick of chalk, neon pink. the freckles on our fingertips glow in the dark.

This is for

the unpublished drafts

the phone notes

the changing of the font

and calling that a poem

the “for what it’s worth I’m sorry”

if sorry could be plural

for existing, maybe

for being there, sometimes

for not being there, enough

for showing up

and talking down

for myself

for others

for hitting “publish”

because your brain demands

at 11:33 pm Eastern Standard Time

that this is right

that this has to get out

that these prepositions

go against everything

that middle school grammar book said

when you read it obsessively

to prepare for a pop quiz

so you could always be the best

on paper, that is

 

but you don’t care

about those silly rules

anymore

 

Que será, será.