dear diary (11/14/16),

these are strange and guilty days to be a listless poet–
here, the whole world is falling apart, and all I can do is write poems
about fucking and even that not on a level commensurate
with my talent and my time
or worthy of the label: queer joy

sometimes you take too long to make something
and the world intended to receive it no longer exists
pulled out from under you, a parlor trick
you should have been expecting
and now all your glasses are leaving rings on the table
as you stand there, stunned
and the magician’s palms are seeping sweat into the tablecloth

the act of writing is sometimes the act of conjuring
giving us a picture of what a future might look like
so that we might will it into existence
or run
run until we can’t breathe and our sides ache
but at least we have put as much distance
between ourselves and a poem as we can

but it feels lately like we have not done enough
we: everyone
enough: something we could destroy each other
in the attempt to understand
done: the past is over and thus dead
the future is always running late
texting us that she’s on the train
when she’s still at home
having a panic attack

trying to decide how to tell us
that we never stop making mistakes
and it’s really stressing her out