I Write Poetry Now, Apparently

Last week, I wrote a poem that I don’t remember writing. I found it in the Notes app on my iPhone when I was looking up the very long list of podcast topics Beatrice and I frequently add to during our daily phone conversations.

“That’s a great podcast topic!” we’ll say about something that’s making us laugh – usually something that is not, in fact, a great podcast topic.

Anyway, apparently I wrote this poem. It was written at 11.30pm, which is two hours after my new bedtime, so I must have woken up, been unable to go back to sleep in the roasting hot toasted sandwich maker our bed has become (Brandin and I are the bread; Atlas is the cheese) and decided, this is the time for me to exercise my poetry skills. Or… lack thereof? You can be the judge.

I Cannot Imagine Jumping

I can imagine climbing

the stairs and getting

to the top and thinking

what next but I cannot

imagine jumping

I can imagine what takes you there

I can imagine the hard and the hurt and the 

heartache

of it all

(I don’t have to imagine because

it is here and I have lived it; 

we have all lived it)

and I can imagine the thinking

and the planning

and the deciding

but I cannot

imagine jumping

what happens in the seconds 

after you step off the edge

or the ledge

or whatever it is you step off to jump

so far down, all the way down

what happens if in those seconds

you imagine turning

back to your life and the hard

and the heart

of it all

I can imagine turning

back

but I cannot imagine jumping