James Diaz
This Life We’ve Lived
But imagine this feather bed
and how I have strayed into the light
like a derailed train
in the autumn’s mix of amber
softly blowing up someone’s kicked about dreams
I have lived this life
you might say
to no one in particular
late at night
by the railroad tracks
where you have waited for years
just to belong
to something tangible and stronger than you are
right now
the dogs are baying at the moon
twice removed
from all you may have done
or failed to do
before this moment
and if love is just the noise between one season
brushed against another, if it’s something you’ve never really known
or owned or been held up in
like light from the farthest side of the world
is it not worth it anyway?
a train that never comes
the waiting, the hurting
the healing howling climbing
up up up
too far in this thing to ever come back down
I have lived this life.
—Submitted on 08/29/2020
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their poems have appeared in Yes Poetry, Gone Lawn, The Collidescope, Thimble Lit Mag, BlogNostics, Poetry Breakfast, and other journals.
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