proclamation

    In time, I proclaimed it in my bedroom. “I am a poet,” I said. He asked me how it felt, and I said painful: it feels like pain, and it does. Yet I could have been more explanatory. Being a poet feels like being always in love with someone who sways you and jerks you like fishing line. It feels like the constant nausea of anxiety pressed against the headiness of desire. It feels like the dread of a thing left unspoken, only noticed when the dust is blown from nostalgia.
    And it feels like three hours of dancing alone with eyes closed to the sounds of pipes and bells. It feels like a simple memory of love. It feels like absolute nakedness. And it feels like gazing at the nakedness of all around you through a lifted trapping of gauze. It feels like every one you see has a chest as open as Mary’s and through the window a burning heart exposed. Including your self, including your self.