Ache

Dry Heave
(or The Problem With This Poem: Being Too Honest and Saying Too Much)

I want to write -
to write something wonderful.
Something eloquent and beautiful,
like the rich, captivating stories Anodos lived and dreamt
in the vast, quiet library of the Fairy Palace.
Something natural and earthy,
 like some dew dazzled bud,
new leaves trembling beneath the weight.
Something compelling and honest,
like a heavy, sweet, soothing concerto,
dripping with grief and anger and beauty,
like Concierto de Aranjuez.
Something old and nostalgic,
like a floral area rug,
border worn down from the friction
of small feet tracing the pattern
around and around, over and over.
Something wise and thoughtful,
like a poem, brief and full,
full like a chalice of wine, shining like liquid garnet,
smooth and bitter and healing.
But I have no such words to write.
I hardly have thoughts, well-rounded and clean thoughts.
I have the broken
fragments of ideas, random bits and
phrases evoked by emotion.
Nothing to grab onto, nothing to grasp, nothing whole.
Reaching, sputtering like a drowning man,
desperate for a lifeline,
lungs burning, chest aching,
I try, testing every line of reasoning I find,
to explain, to rationalize the way I feel.

I'm drifting in an ocean of who knows what.