May 18, 2021.


house of cards

i treated myself to optimism
warning myself about the temporary high
how sensitive i can be when set up for failure or victory
but in the end, i said this could be my time

and i wore a cloak of passion,
buttons and pins of hope and faith,
ignoring spare pages falling away from the loosely bound poems
under my arms

and the wait was unbearable for weeks,
as i checked every day for a result
i left it to the lord, as my mother would say
and took to ignoring the process by looking away

but then, yes, my time came
to taste defeat and regret
i started ripping what poems of mine were left
one by one, in my head

i do not know why i let myself think
i had anything special for even a moment
i knew better, after years of condensing myself down
i don't make art, i destroy it

i poisoned myself with optimism
i felt the crash, i fell from cloud nine
how sensitive i can be, like a house of cards
even when i'm stacked tall and wide







Poetry by aidan haskel The PoetBay support member heart!
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Written on 2021-05-18 at 09:58

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I like the second stanza a lot. There's a wonderful freshness to "buttons and pins of hope and faith."
2021-05-19