Where I Come From

I am from the cold worries of winter,

From that gnawing permanence 

And the rejoice of warm spring.

I am from the two venus violets.

(Mulberry to Sunset Orange,

Choosing it all the same)

I am from a twice, thrice erased page

Littered with endless ideas and people

Who can’t help but echo in my brain

Until I write them on that paper limb.

I am from old anatomy posters,

Crinolines under retro dresses,

The accidentally pretentious,

All the try-hards and oddballs

And the rambling storytellers

Who bring you to the pealing peaks of laughter

And the eerie thickness of unease.

I am from a teacup

Littered with twenty shades of lipstick

And brewed in seven hundred times over

For camaraderie staves off the cold.

I am from the beauty of life,

The machinery that creaks and grinds

But never lets me go.

I am from the upside-down images

That strain and please my eye the same.

(Turn the E on its head,

And let the world flood in)

The macabre simplicity

Of cold metal tables.

I am from a line of twisted potential

Those who found happiness beyond their drive

From dusty-covered violin, paint palette, and arcade

To which I must clear a new path

Cut down the grasses barring me

I am from a cleared fog

Turn my gaze toward a tenuous alliance

Of patellas and pages

I am from the comfort eagle edge

Fall into the safety

Of those who will catch me

For I will always do the same.

I am from those simple moments

The good old days we never knew would end

I am from closing the book

But never taking it off the shelf.