How many closets did we crawl into
How many midnights awakened
By an ever-fixed, screaming star
And I, another day older
No closer still, no more able
To take us away from the chaos
Carelessly strewn about the sky
We were forced to live under
But there we were
Closet door and mouths closed tight
Waiting for morning to come
And I, another day older
Stay
I’m calling this poem, ‘How to Give Up Hope’
For four Novembers, I have been wishing for words to write it
They have escaped me
Forgive me, though I cannot forgive myself
I have no wisdom-filled ink
Except to write, be careful of virtue, it may enslave you
Tie you to the table and leave you starving, Hope
For this reason, you must
Give up, Hope
I never received my concocted potion
The one I’d ordered, for I’m an adult
May it stave off the foggy notion I’ve forgotten who I was growing to be
I’d ordered it to compliment my life
I mean -balance my meal
That’s what adults say, don’t they?
It’s okay, the delay, but bring it, damn it!
Said with a smile that hopefully hides
My slight disgust with myself for wanting, no -needing- the potion at all
Bring it
Before I am faced with the oh-so uncomfortable
To leave here bright-eyed and examining
My un-slurred self-talk
My speech 
A person, willowy or firm
Of thought or fortitude
One about so tall
Needn’t think as a single
Leaf or brick or synapse or impulse
Who cannot move at all
Not on a day such as this
As water gleams
As sun shines
Someplace
On this where that we are
Man without a mouth
Never speak this Way again
Sound without a source
*****************
The ‘So What Genius’
Deny, deny with each breath
We know what you are
Dismay to disillusion. Hours glued to days and weeks and years. We stay stuck here. Must we? Were we thinking when we set down age-old shovels, we’d need to dig our way through? Was there only feelings? An absence of logic? Dismay. We’d not conceived to land on muddy, sinking sand. Now there is no hand -nay, not even our own- willing, it seems, reaching, to pull us up. Disillusion. A notion. A nation. Were we any we at all?
LisaRosier.com 