from ‘Self Portraits’ by Jacob Drum

If I have a spirit animal, it is the Pacific condor, or the albino beluga.

It is a creature hovering near extinction, waiting for a jet engine

Or an illicit Japanese whaling vessel to finish the job.

I am a comic shell of the adult male.

I am the shaggy remains of my self-destructive impulses.

I am awkward silences made more awkward by

Speaking at the same time as my intended listener.

I am a weak voice at the end of a phone message

Thanking the machine for its time,

Then cursing my awkward nature,

All for the recorded pleasure of the person I was trying to call.

I am the one who stays latest at the bar,

Failing to project an image of myself as the hardest partier,

My alcoholic endurance transparently betraying a desire

To look lonely enough for someone to invite me home.

I am pity sex.

I am a coughing fit in the middle of a passionate kiss.

I am a self-sabotaged invitation to dinner.

“Can I take you out for x sometime” is invariably followed

By an “Or” that trails off into nothingness;

The presentation of an option to my requestee,

Which, if given enough silence,

I will decide for them negatively.

I am nervous sweating.

I am stuttering, stammering, and muttered curses.

I am hand-wringing.

I am bitten nails and teeth mangled from chewing writing utensils.

I am an all-too-conscious urge to shoot myself in the foot,

Coupled with the knowledge that if I tried I would probably miss.

I am the impulse to appear less intelligent than I really am,

Either to avoid offending others in the room with my pomposity,

Or to cover my tracks when I actually don’t know what I’m talking about.

I am schoolyard fears carried into adulthood.

I am still the desire for acceptance.

I am still the painted-crystal smiling face,

Shattered as easily by words as by a kickball.

I am still whistling in the dark.

I am still the wide laughing eyes of a young boy

Who doesn’t know what sex or divorce is like,

But sees his eventual education in both.

I am ruining this poem for the sake

of my own pangs of nostalgic sadness.

I am perverse shyness.

Friends I have known for years,

Even relatives I see infrequently, are constant strangers.

I only know them insofar as I have recreated

My initial perception of them in my mind.

I am the refusal to speak,

Because people should just know what I’m going to say already.

I am the stubborn determination not to make eye contact.

I am simultaneously the desire to change these things,

And the knowledge that they are the way I should behave.

I am, at times, the losing side in a battle for control of my own faculties.

This is the life I have created.

I have no other lives to work with, and this is what I’m doing with this one.

I am, while deathly afraid of my own blind failure,

Generally happy with the way this worked out.

Untitled by Mark Maglio

clouds passing the moon.

raindrops fall heavy, heavy.

the puddles fire back.

60 hours by Charles Wiff

Lighter footsteps. Good vibrations. Freedom

Books haphazard. Intense relax. Smiling

Crescendo, peak. Music heavy. Spent

Reflection time. Dishes soaking. Silence

Wonderful friends. Snowflakes falling. Peaceful

Chaos begins. Intense laughter. Four AM

Panic rises. Slower thinking. Scramble

TV background. Crumpled paper.

Uneasy sleep. Heavy footsteps. Restart

Independence by Eric Hillery

Alone I am.

Alone I be.

Alone is I

Alone. That’s me.

Lonely I only was.

Lonely I don’t have to be.

Lonely. Don’t have to be

lonely, with me.

Strong I is

Strong I wasn’t.

Strong because

Strong now does it.

Content I am

Content for me

Content to be content

Contentedly.

Now, it’s you I see.

Now your smile makes me happy.

Now, if only you’d be

now. With me.