freewill poetry

i haven't had any will or desire to sit down and write poems lately. i just don't write like that. but sometimes a poem rises up in me and threatens to drown me unless i let it out. and so i did.

first poem of the new year. long time coming.

it was hard, and i cried. but it is what it needs to be. i think, it is effective, but i've never gauged my poetry that way. i just know, when i came to the end of it, i cried. that, to me, is what a poem should do. let the waters flow.

and now, i must gather myself up and get about my day.

how long it has been since i put poetry first. since i put poetry anywhere except on a back burner or shoved it out of my mind because i've had no time.

my girl is wavering back and forth between sadness and giddiness. and i don't know how to help her now, except to laugh when she does, and cry when she does.

there is little else to be done.

i'm sure conceptually she understands the facts of the matter.

emotionally, not so much.

would i could make it right, but as the boxes start piling up around the living room. as the tangible evidence of my presence diminishes. as she no longer sees me for an entire day sometimes, she begins to grasp what i knew only my moving could explain. the finer points of being the child of divorced parents.

so be it.

i cannot stay. i must go. it is intolerable now and i must away.

the choices we make may not be "right" in the popular sense of the word, but they are, in fact, ours. i still believe i've made the best choices i could. and, in time, i hope the evidence will prove me out.

i'm sure it will.

but for now, i just rejoice that i am still, or once again, at least for today a poet.