Day 8 - And Now For Something Completely Darker

This is a follow up to a series of poems I started writing. In fact, I don't know what happened to the rest, but I wrote another #2. It's in the darker variety of things. I wrote these poems from a fake me to another fake me. I tried writing from a place of anger for a while. Not real anger per se, but an idea of angry narrators. I don't believe in this emotionless being writing. This channeler of pure observation. Alright, I'm not going to get into poetry theory. Here's a happy Sunday poem!


Letter to James #2: Coal

To an Older Me,

Remember:
Christmas ’92. Post-divorce.
Your family is reimagining themselves.
There is less, of course.
And more. And it looks right.
The wrapping paper clings to ankles.
The Z sound of electric toys.
Nama is asleep, glasses precarious.
You don’t have a dog yet, don’t conjure him here.
And stop picturing easy smiles.
This is a skinless holiday.
A toothsucking day of ceremony.

You are wedged deep in the overstuffing.
These days, you are always writing,
the escape begun.
Uncle John asks why the hell you writing Santa?
Christmas is done, buddy.
And you don’t joke about getting better presents,
because you’ve started holding back,
deciding to never add any weight to the ice
of sorrow we’re all skating on.
That’s the way I (you) write then.
We say things like ice of sorrow.

But it’s not Santa I’m writing.
It’s you and I don’t believe in you either.
That you’ve become what I need.
Remember: in the midst of it,
while all worked to restructure,
you had a killing feeling all Christmas.
A Something you’d never felt
but it was like sand in your bones,
like glass for teeth.
A feeling too big for me,
too complicated, too unaccomplishable
for then. So I boxed it up
and sent it ahead 15 years.
My only Christmas wish. If you exist.

Love,
You