Just Checking In

I was in Florida this week. I didn't like it. It wasn't warm. The most exciting conversation I had was with a parrot named Murphy that just said "hewwo". Having lived in the same place for my whole life, getting home from a week away felt the same as getting home from school. And although I didn't much enjoy Florida, I'm not exactly thrilled to be coming home to school again. It wasn't so bad, I guess. It's just that we stayed on this creepy little island with nothing to do but "look at nature", and all the old people rode their bikes everywhere and rung their little bells when they rode by.
Anyway, I kept up with my poem a day although most of them weren't much to be proud of. Discipline first, though, and I did them all. Tonight will be the eighteenth. I'm finding that with writing them, even though I sometimes don't like what I get, it always seems to say to me what I wanted it to. I think it happens that way because I tend to do them kind of backwards. I think of how I want my poem to feel, and then I try to convey it. There must be more than one way it can be for it to feel like it's what I meant to do. If it comes out the way I wanted it to, I should like it and think it's good, but sometimes I don't.

Daily Practice

I'm really liking this daily practice thing. I narrowed mine down to a poem a day. It's certainty; if I write a poem a day, in a year, I'll have written 365 poems. That's all there is to it. It will be that way, and the only way it won't is if I don't write a poem every day. I find that I'm hardly resenting my new obligation; I actually look forward to it. It's a break from homework, it's better than watching TV, and I genuinely enjoy doing it. I honestly didn't expect it to be that way. What's keeping me going is how excited I'll be in a year, writing Day 365 at the top of my page. I'm even excited to write Day 15. Anyway, here I am on Day 4 and already feeling a hell of a lot better than I felt a week ago. Here's poem numero 4.

February decided to stay a while, so we
adjusted to salting the frozen rain
on the doorstep. Crunchy grass began our
days. Our down-filled coats never made it back
to the closet. I knew that if you called
to me, the hot water must be done, and if your
guitar was away when I walked
in the door, you had heard me
coming. Your words sounded like
footsteps upstairs. You walked like you
were facing the wind. The radiator
covered midnight silence. I'd fall asleep
aware of the light
in the bathroom where you shaved your graying
beard.

Core Values & Issues

Values:
Certainty, the inevitable
Things that exist vs. things that don't
Empathy

Issues:
Fact vs. opinion/belief
religion
selfishness
knowing or understanding a person
influence