nathanael.ink

September 5, 2024

What Did Not Oxygenate

when i was born the umbilical chord was wrapped around my neck three times
the doctor did a spin

i always wonder what did not oxygenate
in me, while it was happening
and if that is the reason
i am the way i am

or maybe it was the car accident
both our cabins rolled up with my plans
i was thrilled that we all survived
but made it was then

or maybe it the loss of my friend

or the time he smiled, toward the end, and i saw how few teeth he had left

or maybe it was the coffee we had
so raunch i had to spit it out – maybe he poisoned it

or maybe every time it is cloudy but doesn’t rain
my skin reacts and mutates my brain

maybe i am the way i am
because of my toes against the corner of the bed so many goddamn times
i think there are a lot of nerve endings in the toes

whatever the reason
i don’t know why it matters so much to you

here i am
after all
here i am
September 2, 2024

what assuming does

“you know what assuming does…”
but people do not like when I don’t assume
I must assume what they mean with every word they say
I must assume what they will think when I say what I say
“you know what making the wrong assumption does…” should be the phrase

when you speak a clock begins
I only have that barely window
to speak again
in kind
so I have to guess
I have to guess what need was motivating what you said
I have to guess why you said it the way you did
I have to guess, based on that, what I should say
and become aware of what is going on in me
I have to guess how what I will say will move both you and I in different ways
and when I find a thing that is right to me but, I have to assume, will stir a pain in you
I have to start it all again, but I’m still on the clock
the window narrows before you wonder why I won’t respond
before you wonder what is wrong
before no one’s brain almost ever thinks “oh it’s okay, he’s just different than me” — brains seem to insist
something must be wrong with me
and the shutters of the window close
so I have to, now, squeeze my responding words through those
and when I have tried and tried for this long while
to respond in kind
so often, but not so often that anyone seems to really keep it in mind, but still quite often enough
I get the calculous tremendously wrong
and they say
“don’t you know what assuming does…?”
but I do
I do know
but you don’t
August 23, 2024

God’s Likeness

Christ was a child
we know for sure

I hope he was the riley one
made to rule when all they begged him
was to listen

I hope his cries shined and shined
mocking every plan his parents had

I hope when they knew
they looked back
and knew

he was just like James, and John
and all the boys they knew
but now, they knew, which parts were God in them
and which parts
were God’s parts too
August 20, 2024

An Untitled Poem About Time, Fingers, Praying Fists, Finger Traps, Stencil Prints, Fatty Roads, Craggy Molds, Winter Weather, and Palms Sharing Sweat

time is fingers between fingers
locked in a praying fist
one hand is the present moment
the other is experience

consciousness is a finger trap
between all the fingers all at once
so that what should always have been separate
we know, for us, never is

memory is a stencil print
on three pounds of fatty roads
we can always run the traffic back
through resulting craggy molds

but we are winter and harsh weather
in our fight to have it back
and — have what back? after all,
walking the fatty paths
was never ‘what we had’

what we had was always fingers between fingers
wishing to be separate
it was palms sharing sweat and us unable to tell the difference
between the present moment
and our experience of it
August 19, 2024

spirit of eternity

the spirit of eternity is milky
it is from the breast when we are children
and then we give it up

it is a heavy cream
we circle into coffee
and then forget

oh spirit of eternity, we pray
come to us
unfold our notion of ‘a day’

oh spirit of eternity, we plea
remember us
as we await to enter thee

for your face is long as a sheet
and cold as a galaxy
your words are the sky in the evening
and the earth when we sleep

spirit of eternity
you are what we all hope to be:
the stillness
that brought us into being
and the push
that our mothers start

we won’t be finished in our graves
and we have you, we will always have you,
to thank
August 9, 2024

(affirmations)

i am no more
but also no less
i can take a back seat
and i can drive myself

a retreat is not a retreat
when the fortress is in me

i can love who i am
when i am shy, when i am different
when i know i don’t fit in
when i cannot do what you tell me to

no one must to make space for me
because i can
August 9, 2024

300 dollar bet on birds

stupid birds
i can’t wait for you to die

GOD compared me to you
and some flowers, i think daffodils
i can’t wait for your nest to loose
and wind to break your branch
i can’t wait for you to die

they use you as the reason
i am not allowed to think i suffer
the reason i am not allowed to worry
i can’t wait for you to die

stupid birds
i heard some mothers eat their young
maybe that is what GOD meant

PS: three hundred dollars says i’m right
August 8, 2024

loud singer man

i cannot wish i wasn’t
enough
i could wish i was and wish i was and wish i was enough and enough and enough
i could wish i knew and wish to be different and still never be
i could speak and speak at 9am but still again i will have to speak at 9:15
i will have to speak and speak and bother everybody
i will have to hear them try to help while resounding in agreement that i am the odd one out
that what i have is my problem and i will have to let them know over and over until i die

i hate that i look the same as them
i hate that i look so close enough that they can forget
maybe if my head was twice the size
or my body drifted off to one side
if my legs were both twisted in
if my back was deeply bent
maybe if i did not blend in they would not forget and forget and forget

maybe i don’t want them to ask me
maybe i do
maybe i just want them to know already
or know that they care enough to know

i am the loud singer man
and i don’t want to have to be
everybody’s chance to practice self reflection
i do not what to be that kind of gift
(gifts with clauses and conditions to receive)

i am the loud singer man and even if you say I’m not
that doesn’t make a difference
because someone is
August 1, 2024

tomorrow they’ll see

i was different today,
and yesterday,
and before that,
forever back.

tomorrow, i think,
i’ll be the same.
i’ll wear pink when they wear pink,
i will wink when they wink,
and scream when they scream.

tomorrow they won’t even notice.
i won’t be different anymore;
i won’t even be me.

tomorrow, i think,
i’ll be free.

tomorrow, i won’t even have to stand up for myself anymore.
i’ll be what they want me to be.
i’ll sit in the seat,
i’ll speak when they speak,
and scream when they scream.

tomorrow they’ll see,
they’ll see,
i don’t even have to be me.
i can be them,
and even float into my grave.
i can even float into my grave like this,
like them.
August 1, 2024

whatever we want to be

whatever we want to be gets funneled through
shelves,
shoved into
bookcases for books,
hardware for wood,
lumber and wool.

whatever we want to be gets a laugh,
a cackle in the back,
a cough from the furthest pew,
a sleepy “z” from the child in their mother’s lap.

whatever we want to be
will have to be us,
and be what it will never be for anyone else.

you push uphill
and pull down the shelves.
you rip every stitch and wake up everyone.

write, for yourself,
the book and the shelf and the wool and the wood,
the comedy and cathedral and sleepy congregants.

write the way the mother loves the child,
and write the way you notice
nobody noticing you,
except
that one person, the only one we even matter to,

you.