My May First 2010

Nerves navigate to
anxious peaks of memory
avalanche awaits

her anxiety
wraps around my mother’s neck
tight and unyielding

her life in boxes
measured by the number of
pills she takes each day

77
years of life whittled down to
one room that’s not her’s

i had to read at the youth speaks staff meeting on monday.i was hella nervous. i had tried writing for the last 2 weeks. but inspiration couldn't be forced. i've tried writing about my grandmother a few times. maybe i'll get past haiku someday. maybe not.
i'm glad the reading is over and i'm glad i had to do it. i got really good feedback from amazing poets. as josh said, the "grunts" of affirmation got louder with each haiku. dennis said he appreciated how i flipped the haiku form making it a series but still stayed true to the form by maintaining that the last 5 syllables be lines of clarification. people could relate, that's always the most validating part. i still hafta come up with one more poem, or another series of haikus, for my last day at youth speaks. we'll see where that takes me.