Poetry, Paragraphically Formed

Here is poetry made from the gray folds of my own mind.

A Sycamore Lives Inside of Me

A sycamore lives inside of me. I trim my leaves daily. Sometimes, I chew them off. Like hangnails. I know it symbolizes growth. It is growth. But who else must deal this way. Never have I peeked a sprout on someone else’s person. Not like the man on the bus who shuddered at the foliage spitting unkindly from my ear. I stopped drinking water for a week, traveled only at night. It stopped its punching youngness, that spurting spirit of youth. But I became listless, lonely and dry as bone. We live together, and so we die.

And so I traveled to the countryside. And so I planted my feet in rich soil. And so I stopped caring and became a forest. At least I am not alone.

Now

I remember the fluorescent glow of inside employment, scraping the concrete with razorblades and sweeping up after myself. I remember the day blinking out before I came to glimpse it, a four o’clock sunset and sleep, so much sleep. I remember drinking too much and loving it and still loving it now, living what fraction of life is left like a life worth living, not saving for an immutable immeasurable future, a thing spaced off and far away and never ever real, merely a penumbra of hope that more resembles discontent than progress. Blink out the unfolding of calendar reveries, you’ll die tomorrow! Everything begins and ends right here.

Somewhere Upward

Stocking shelves, blankly staring, my mind somewhere upward of me, in concrete, parking structure, working ever upward, trying for sky, wisp of cloud, my hands are functioning, muscle memory, I notice I am stocking toast tongs, yes, tongs for toast, and in noticing this I feel the dread, feel the insistence of the inevitable apocalypse, I feel we’re closer than ever before, and no shit, everyone’s scared but it’s a latent fear, living somewhere under our ribcages, behind our hearts, a dull ache, it’s in the toast tongs, the teabag squeezers, yes, there is teabag squeezers, the little things, the knowledge and image that people are delicately pulling toast with stylish bamboo tongs or are afraid to squeeze out their teabags with fingertips or spoon, too elegant, and I think this world is too fragile and the monkey in us is both too present and entirely gone, and I’ve got a goddamned hangnail and I feel my mind will never successfully navigate those halls of cars, never find the sweet air of sky.

by Sean Flannigan