coincidental catastrophe // song of a snowman (poetry)

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i.

you open your coal eyes (but somehow
it seems that they were never closed?)
to snow-covered sidewalks, the scent of snow
blowing past your carrot-nose,
someone’s soft piano music drifting
out the window into the crisp cold of winter’s night.
having just been born everything seems alight
with possibility, and yet it all feels so familiar
as if a memory is dancing at the tips of your twig-fingers,
as if you have always been here—
a paradox of time you can’t seem to unravel.
sunset’s last glow vanishes and you marvel at tiny lights
in this dark abyss, at specks of hope that shine
in the longest of nights.
perhaps this is what it means to be—
to shine against all odds into the void so we
may fill it with light.

ii.

sun’s edge peeks over the horizon for the first time,
(for you, anyway. and yet it feels as though
the sun has been rising for an eternity.)
children coming out to play and at the beginning
you look forward to their smiles each day
and laughter fills the world like music and
it feels so lively and vibrant and whole until
you realize that every time the sun comes up
you seem to slip away
just a little.

iii.

somewhere along the way everything
melts into a routine, turning ‘round
and ‘round again, and the light loses
a little bit of its shine and the world
a little bit of its wonder and the laughter
a little bit of its joy, and the cold loses
a little bit of its bite and the yearning
a little bit of its ache and so the details blur
but you don’t get dizzy ‘til you stop spinning and so
you whirl around, momentum building, watching day
by day by day fly by and you can’t seem to stop—

iv.

until one day the children stop coming.
carted away by a big yellow bus the roads
are quiet once more.
and your weight seems a little heavier than before,
you sink a little deeper into the ground, and you
realize that you can see your reflection in the blood
that has been melting out from inside of you.
but instead of how you pictured yourself to be,
you only see a deformed face and sunken eyes,
a sagging smile and yet somehow you no longer
remember a time when you looked like anything else.
perhaps this is what it means to be—to slowly
fall apart until you don’t remember that there was
a time when you were whole.

v.

the sun rises again, like always, an eternity
(and yet it feels as if it is reaching the sky
for the first time). you feel yourself slipping away,
and you know that you will not make it to see the stars.
but the sun is also a star—it always was, and yet somehow
you never seemed to notice—so big and brighter
than the others, and you can remember now
what you couldn’t seem to grasp before—
(isn’t it odd how the one who causes your destruction
is the one who makes you possible, makes you whole
in the first place?)—a memory of children coming out to play, when
their laughter filled the world like music—and you revel
in the past, released from time. and the clouds come
and cover the sunshine and you reach out
but the memory has already left your fingertips.

vi.

dance, disfigured, wave, throw your arms
through the air when you still remember
how to conduct a symphony—
when you still remember
who you are.

vii.

and so comes the day that you must go.
water droplets vanish into the air and suddenly
you are everywhere and yet nowhere at once.
you have left but the grim reaper never comes to reap
because you had already died so long ago.

when the light finally goes out
no one is there to mourn. only one
comes out to collect the buttons and wet scarf
and it is like you were
never there at all. 

---

Author's note: This isn't really how I normally write poetry, as I spent a lot less time on sound devices and really just wanted to focus on the cohesive tone of the piece. I really like the end result, though, and I think the experimental nature of the poem worked out well. Thanks for reading!