If Only

Another poem from today. Just a rough draft.
All of my poems are rough rough rough drafts.


If Only

If only, if only you could tell me
Bluntly, the way I don’t fit
Why the knobby imperfection
Has grown around that hole


Remove the splinter now
That it’s firmly wedged
Now that I’ve spent so long
Polishing this great flaw

Turning it over and over
Searching for significance
Why a fragment, rejection
This path instead of that


A restless, painful curiosity
Magnified by time
And the mind’s trick
Of projecting beauty onto loss


If only, if only I could build a bridge
Gnarled wood for you to burn to the ground
The crackling dissonance
Could maybe loosen your hold on me