Untitled Poem by Maya Garza

I pick up my pen, but the ink is frozen within it.
How can I write when the ink has left me,
When the colors of the earth are far and subdued?
It’s not for lack of trying – but nothing comes out the way I’ve planned.
I get tired, what can I say?
When page after page hits the floor in a crumpled sigh,
When there’s nothing but snow in my minds eye.
I want this, believe me.
But I can’t force sweet words from my tongue.
It’s dry and tired and I want to sleep. I want to be sung to sleep.
Let a sweet melody lull me into a dreamland of inspiration,
where any kind of ink grows in pens from the ground,
where any kind of person can pick them, in lovely dense literary bouquets,
and give them to their lovers, friends, and families.
And how they will brighten up every room; admired, adored, and felt.
But for now, a grey world faces me from my window side. It’s out there –
It fogs at my fingertips.
It’s like watching decay in the slowest of motion, the flowers frozen beneath the ice, crushing under our step.
I’m torn between inspiration and desperation. I am aware of what’s to come.
It’s creeping, just beyond my line of sight.
But for now, I’m here and I’m feeling, and I could write you a rainbow.
And I’d hope that it would make you feel as much as possible, before the chance is
Gone away.
The air I breathe isn’t sweet; it hasn’t feathered down my throat and over my tongue in a long while.
It doesn’t enfold my mind. You know what does.
When I’m drunk on emotion, color, and black and white speech, I stumble over beauty.

Stumble.

Over.

You.

Winter/09