do you believe in inspiration?
does it make you an adult not to?
you open your can of mac and cheese or beans
the fridge is yellow,
you've left all your dreams 
out like teeth for a tooth fairy
you've never believed.

he said I have to choose
that if I want to be the boss in the suit,
the writer with fingers on the keys,
the mother of two or three,
and the scientist musing on truth --
he said I'll fail.

he said I have to be one, but not the other
that if I fragment like a fallen chandelier
that's all I'll be, useless,
good for nothing, an artless artist.

I wanted the line
of the original. 
its flavor, its pattern
melted ice cream splashed on a napkin
an experiment in childhood.
the graffiti of poetry
by a hermit in the wildwood.

I've let so much go
I've whittled down my cares.
does that make me an adult?

they lie and they tell you that you can't have everything
and then they lie and tell you that you can.

am I jealous and selfish,
overzealous and elvish
for captioning my dissatisfactioning?
my toes dig deep in white sand of the south
I relish my tongue alone in my mouth.
out here I'm a sole syllable.
I drink the water of an individual.
yet all the while I miss my crew.
Alone and I want company,
surrounded and I want solitude.

do you believe in inspiration?
I am sick with the worst sickness there is
all I want is words for years
and I want the words to come easy,
slick spitting down a marine slope
hydroplaning on spare sails.
but if I can't have the words faster
I need more years.
so that's what the tooth fairy should put under my pillow --
not money but time,
not a dime but a spare life.

[Featured Image by Kevin Martin Jose; free to use or share]