Na Po Wri Mo – April 11 2023

The prompt today was using ‘overheard language’ – write a poem that ‘takes as its starting point something overheard that made you laugh, or something someone told you once that struck you as funny.’

Not funny, but I went from ‘I should be crying’ and came up with this:

Beside Your Bed

I should be crying.

But I can’t let it show.

I could speak.

Say all the things I ought

to have said. 

But there is no time.

I could think.

Of all the things 

I need to say.

I am too tired.

And what about 

all the questions

I never asked?

The things you omitted

to tell me.

The things you wouldn’t 

explain.

No matter we failed

to close the gap.

All the things we never did.

All the things we didn’t give.

I know you have a little 

life left.

I could try.

I could cry.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

I won’t.

Not here.

Beside your bed.