nathanael.ink

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.
July 29, 2024

isn’t anything to it

talk,
speak,
see how they do.
let every noise
let every noise loose,
let every voice
let every voice loose,
and speak,
see how they do.

this is okay with everyone but you,
and you always want to be the exception,
don’t you?
you have to be.
speak.
July 24, 2024

why i feel weird about you at happy hour

it’s just that
i had a drunk
as a friend
from the time my life began
to the time he ended his

and then
i had another drunk
from then
to the time i discovered it
on the call
and driving her to the hospital

this poem will make space for the pain i’m in
without it controlling me
and you must keep space to have a drink
without being controlled by it or the pain in me
July 20, 2024

Pairs of Cinnamon Teal

pairs of Cinnamon Teal
look the same until god wants something

and so I glow without permission
until god tells me to stop

Cinnamon Teal are quiet
I think I should be