Hyena Print

A print.
Mustard yellow
and maroon hyenas laughing.
She made it for a class.

The mongrels on the page
remind me of that frigid January morning.
Her floor was too cold
for bare feet.
It was not November.
No socks that her mother knitted,
or excitement in her voice
like I had set a bottle rocket off
in her.
No sad eyes trying to look happy.

A replacement
for something
she meant to draw for me
but didn’t.
Never telling me
what she had in mind.

Hope leapt from the page.
That maybe there was something
hidden in the paper.
That maybe they weren’t
laughing at me.
48 hours later,
I was on a train
from Toronto to Albany.
A mess of a man
clutching a piece of paper.

I keep them
leashed on my desk.
Every so often,
I pull them
from their frame.
Run my hands
over the ink
and try to feel
what they were supposed to be.

I’ve always found it easier to talk about relationships ending rather than what’s it like to be good and in them.  At least not for the public I should say, I write plenty of personal poems for loved ones that hit all the spots that are close to home.  Not sure what that says about me but like my poems about depression it comes from being able to look at something objectively.  Being amidst something clouds my creativity, it feels almost like I don’t do the events that transpired justice by being over sentimental.

It might be that idea of I’m doing the relationship justice that makes it easier.  I think there are too many lines that can be crossed.  Either from being that enthralled with your partner or from everything being washed in a bitter hue after a break up.  I feel like by waiting until there’s distance from them I’m able better show what these moments were special.  Not writing a fairy tale or sob story, but a testament to why it was worth anything.

  Anyways, this poem pretty much wrote itself in one go.  I didn’t feel the need to go into great depth with what the print looked like exactly, it’s importance goes beyond it’s physical description and I also felt I couldn’t do it justice.  At points I thought about actually making up what it looked like to avoid any sort of conflict with the person written about here.  I came to the conclusion that it didn’t reveal enough intimate details that it was necessary.  Plus changing the item seemed to take power away from it even if I’m the only one who it really matters to.  The only thing I changed drastically from this was the fourth stanza.  These three lines were at the end of it for a while  “like a child / holding a made up map to nowhere.”  In the long run they came off way too dramatic and I cut them.  The form is also sloppy but whatever this is poetry damn it.