Rota
I guess phoenix metaphors are cliché for a reason
what with all the falling and rising we do,
how every morning I have to kick off the ash
before I kick off the covers.
But still, I really shouldn’t use cliché.
I really shouldn’t use the type of words
that everyone understands
immediately and describe my body
as some mythical bird
post-flat line, still flying.
I really shouldn’t describe my body
at all. It’s such an overused device.
Yet here I am saving all the complex imagery
for my therapist. She doesn’t seem to much understand
what I have to say anyway, but I think she likes
how I space out the words. How they bounce down
the couch towards her … an avalanche of ellipses.
It’s just so hard to name things, not to mention
be clever about it. I just call it “tired” or “confused”
but the literature calls it “compassion fatigue”
or “relationship OCD”, which is comforting
because it means there’s a whole circus of us
even if we stay real quiet.
Even if sadness is just another alternative
rock song. Even if I am just a barely breathing
lung, and friends and poems and Prozac
can only be summed with some lame
rib cage metaphor, at least we’re out here
putting words to things. At least we’re out here
More phoenix than zombie
More rib cage than metaphor.
More words please!
More words please!
More words please!
Please God, let me trap these things inside of me
with letters so they don’t turn into the kind of bird
that everyone pretends they can’t name.