The Typewriter Poem by Stephanie Starr

The quill is broken, the ink is dried up, the heart is left
Alone in the dark, to fear the words that it cannot find
And yet it survives, how it does so is unknown
It will not speak but likes to let them watch and forget….

Everything. Anything. It makes their minds tumble with confusion.
Secrecy. Privacy. Keeping other’s out.
Keeping others in.
All so unknown.
To the unknown.
So I will grow.

I wish the words would flow over me, forget who I am
But they catch me in their claws and drag me back to this old typewriter
So here I am, typing words that make no sense and yet make cents
Cut me off a flower so I may smell it later, and be brought back to the time
When life was sweet and effortless, not this web of words I caught myself in
Write what you want, I used to say, but watch what you write now replaces it
Or….write what you can. When the words catch you, they don’t forget you.
Instead they remember who you are but don’t let you catch them
They flutter away as you approach them, your gaze an emotionless stare
Not a glare. A stare. They won’t let you use them like they use you.
But is that not the way of the world?
I use my wife for love, my children for happiness, my guitar for comfort
My dog for distraction, my mind for abusing, my fingernails for chewing
The world goes on, and I am still at this clanking typewriter, trying to seal my fate
Bring me back a bluebird so that I may see it fly
Maybe it will bring me back a word or two, they can chase what I can’t
These old bones creak and moan, and yet my mind groans from internal pain
From seeing him cry like that, but the laugh cut me deep
He was my brother but now I only see him as a lost murderer
He cut her open and left her out to dry, broke her quill even when the ink was gone
But why I protect him I do not know, and the laws of the world will get me for that
But maybe someday I can look at him again and see the boy I faught with all the time
The one I taught to fish and wrestle under the shady, cool trees in late summer
I doubt I will, and it’s probably best that way. They are two separate people now
And I am still stuck with this decrepit typewriter, typing into thin air,
Trying to forget the girl who painted herself blue, just to hear me sing
So I could sing her a lullaby to lull her off to sleep, one with no room for monsters
It’s just me and the stars, she’d say, as she would wake up to another day –
There ain’t another day for her, it’s all gone down the drain
I am the one who awakes, but to a wife full of tears and a brother full of anger
What am I full of?
Nothing.