Last week, I wrote a poem that I don’t remember writing. I found it in the Notes app on my iPhone when I was looking up the very long list of podcast topics Beatrice and I frequently add to during our daily phone conversations.
“That’s a great podcast topic!” we’ll say about something that’s making us laugh – usually something that is not, in fact, a great podcast topic.
Anyway, apparently I wrote this poem. It was written at 11.30pm, which is two hours after my new bedtime, so I must have woken up, been unable to go back to sleep in the roasting hot toasted sandwich maker our bed has become (Brandin and I are the bread; Atlas is the cheese) and decided, this is the time for me to exercise my poetry skills. Or… lack thereof? You can be the judge.
I Cannot Imagine Jumping
I can imagine climbing
the stairs and getting
to the top and thinking
what next but I cannot
imagine jumping
I can imagine what takes you there
I can imagine the hard and the hurt and the
heartache
of it all
(I don’t have to imagine because
it is here and I have lived it;
we have all lived it)
and I can imagine the thinking
and the planning
and the deciding
but I cannot
imagine jumping
what happens in the seconds
after you step off the edge
or the ledge
or whatever it is you step off to jump
so far down, all the way down
what happens if in those seconds
you imagine turning
back to your life and the hard
and the heart
of it all
I can imagine turning
back
but I cannot imagine jumping
