Tuesday Poem by Kyle Costa

It's Tuesday again.

It always rains on Tuesday.

I can't beat time to the stairwell before
it snatches my arm and pulls me back to sleep,
a sleep that only haunts me, you know.
When I don't rest I hold an old lantern up to a dirty mirror,
to see my reflection with a rustic taste.
I always cherished rustic things;
they reminded me of autumn's disposition.
But when autumn comes, I feel sad;
I bite the darkness, and cast my emotions to the night -
like shadows.

If I yell loud enough, someone will hear me,
someone with a gentle voice.
Autumn - curse thee!
I stab another page, to see if it will weep
or if the splattering ink will
form a constellation.
Maybe I should write more - or maybe I shouldn't.
Maybe I should remain still.
An eye is visionless to an empty world.

I study karma with a kaleidoscope,
friction with human agency;
I was always shrewd with syntax.
But too quick with words that
when I fumbled my weapon,
I'd either shoot my eyes out,
or leave a disparate hole in the ceiling -
perhaps one to crawl through and
join the stars in quiet discussion.

My negative adjectives
get mistaken for pessimism;
nobody knows that I smile when the sun dies.
Sometimes I laugh at its diligence -
feral audacity, as its fleeing orange fingers
release the horizon.
Maybe I think about death too much - or not enough,
for it made the greatest poetry.
Sometimes my thoughts are unsafe.

Convincing myself I'm real is always
the most difficult part: skeleton, muscle tissue;
I pinch my skin when I forget.
But I don't forget as much as I used to.
I wish I could remember in dreams -
maybe they wouldn't be so scary.