Poetry: This Is What "Yep" Meant

I wait in the dark,
my eyes closed, my hands poised.

Sometimes it seems like nothing will come.

I open my eyes:
A white screen, a blank life.

A spark of anger flares up and fades.

I look at the clock:
two fifteen, two forty.

My mind begins to skitter and grasp.

I start to tap keys,
Foraging, accreting.

A vomit of letters piles up and reeks.

I barrel ahead
Ignore it, but I can’t

And yet I’m typing, forgiving myself.

Even though I know myself this writing is:

An accelerating unraveling: strands
drawn from desperation,
pulled apart to fill up space,
which is stuffed with straw and dross
from thin memories fattened up.

Strands unraveling from a height,
falling and tangling
to jumble together, but together.
If meaningless.

---

I gave you my page
last Wednesday, I did it.

Sometimes it seems like I wasn’t wrong.

I thought you would talk
about it, or something.

I thought you would be… clear if not kind.

I didn’t think you’d think
it was good, or thought through.

But you said nothing, nothing at all.

I cannot stand this,
I cannot, I will not.

I should have told you: nothing did come.

I’m doing that now:
forgive me, I’m sorry.

I hope you will say – don’t do it twice.

Even forgive me, by telling me writing is this:

A slow tying together – ropes
of patience,
of the need to fill an emptiness,
of straws made into twine,
made to sustain.

Ropes making a bridge that stretches ahead,
sturdy if flawed,
but not unraveling –
connecting.

---

Maybe. But that’s what kills me.
Do you remember?

I gave you my page.
Our eyes met, a beat passed.

“A great job today,” and then, “All right?”

“Yep,” I said. And I left you
in the dark.

But no more.