This morning I murdered a book,
as I laid in bed with my dozing pitbull,
watching her breath move the blanket,
her paw twitching against the mattress and my leg
while sunlight submersed the room into existence.

The plot had some sort of twist that I had
not recently seen in film or book;
or, at least,
I don’t think so,
for I, to this day, cannot remember what
this book is about, and neither will you.

And as I rubbed shampoo through my hair,
two poems fell out, slithering down the drain,
next to an armada of bubbles and a few stray hairs,
with me stumbling to remember
what they looked like as I pressed my razor
against the side of my jaw.

One of them came back eventually,
crawling upward from my whirlpool of Earl gray and sugar,
inching onto my finger,
making its way towards my shoulder and back into my head,
where it immediately ran back down to my finger and,
through the ball of a pen,
onto paper, eventually stuffed into a pocket in my backpack
and forgotten about for quite some time.

A conversation at work reminds me, somehow,
of the deceased novel,
but like a graveyard bell,
it is long gone to the world,
no matter how many times it is dug up
or how many times it reminds me that it’s around.
But the thought still persists,
and it itches at the corners of my skull,
digging trenches in its fissures and preparing
to wrack my brain for the next few minutes.

Today, as with any day,
is a field of dying what-if’s,
and as time moves forward,
as with any other day,
I am left repeating the familiar patterns of loss.

But every now and then,
something slips through the cracks,
and after time and care and precious attention
is taken with one idea,
an ensemble of words and thoughts coalesce,
which, when read, causes others to ponder under an oak tree,
or to wonder furiously while gazing as the heavens
breaking through darkness, creating one more idea
that most likely will never be.

---

Featured Download: If you would like a resource to help you write poetry like this, CLICK HERE.