I got an email from the Silly Swedish Skier on Friday asking me if I wanted to participate in Team Poetry.

First I panicked.
Hells no.

I haven't written a poem since I was 17. Not a real one anyway.

Poetry is hard.
And weird.
And I don't wear black to hide scars on my wrists.

By Sunday I came around to the idea.
Plus I need a writing challenge because blogging is so quick and easy and yawn.
But poetry is so quick and queasy and cryptic.

I like to pick people out of my day and make up poetry stories about them in my head while I ride the bus.
Why not get it down on paper?

I like to use interchangeable pronouns when I write poetry.

Is that about you?
No.
Yes.
Her, me, him, my, ours, theirs.
It's about all of us.
None of us.
Just a thought I had.

Writing poetry is embarrassing.
Posting it even more so.
I was going to back out.

But then I was up at 4am today and came up with something that I will post (no edits, one of my self imposed poetry rules is that whatever comes out first is what sticks forever. Spontaneous and cerebral and directly from the gut) on July 21st at 11.11am.

And after I finished that, I wrote another. And another and another and another and another until I got it all out.

Then I threw them in the recycling bin.

So tragic.
All full of sunshine and razorblades.
Garbage, really.
But I feel better.

Poetry is more fun to write than read.
But I like how a line or two will stick with you forever.

"What kind of fuckery is this?
You made me miss the Slick Rick gig."

So it's dirty old Amy Winehouse and not poetry. But it is.
It plays in my brain every time something crappy stops me from doing something better.
Work's for jerks, man.
Keeping me from living my life.
What kind of fuckery, indeed.

I got an email from a friend in which she told me how she DID some cheesecake last night. Her allcaps.
Got me to thinking how we DO richy decadent feel good things. No need to find another verb. You DID it. She didn't EAT cheesecake. She DID it. Like a drug. Like a lover.

Yes, please I would like another.

I'd like to DO life.
Pin it down and ride it and shove it up my nose til we're both exhausted.
But it seems that I'm already so damned tired.
There has to be a balance.