What if I Love

After seeing a hypnotherapist

She fell to her knees in the middle of the street downtown

Because she suddenly saw the joy in it all

How horrifying

The anxious pains in my stomach are caused by

The sharpness of my memories

I pace and pace and pace

But you can only do so many laps in a studio apartment

Before the real insanity sets in

The sound of the dried autumn leaves skipping on the pavement in the wind

Sounded as if someone was sneaking up behind me on my walk home

I always check back even when there’s silence on the sidewalks

In the middle of a beautifully bright day

Still, I see a gentle beauty in small moments

That I hold on to long after the fragment has been beaten to death

Over and over in my memory

Every New Year’s Day

I think I’m supposed to feel different on an esoteric level

I put the vision board on the wall

And tell everyone I’m an optimist

I don’t know what I’m mourning

My life is obscured by a violence in my heart

I have never experienced on my body

My inconsequential nature brings out the beige in my aura

I feel everybody can see how much there is to not see

But I pretend I’m an auteur planting clues

In some conceptual masterpiece

I try to give away pieces of my soul but no one wants any

I have no interest in art that is just for me

I’ll collage and edit and cut and tear

Glue the poems together until they are something shiny and new

That I had never felt at all

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