WHEN THE WRITER TRIES TO MAKE NUMBNESS HUMANE by T.R. San

When poets crawl out of dead-white paper to remind me I’m an alive thing;
When in the darkness I mouth my own fist as though it were something
More authoritative, like God maybe, or even a loaf of bread not too dry
For this blood-softened and bite-prone delicacy; when I am reduced to begging
To an unknown thing, like a cicada out of season and reduced to dust, in hope
Their cries are cries of tears, and not a necessity, like breathing; when
Terribly alone in my hope I weep, unaware that hope itself is a product
Of a life, small but here inside of me, like some sort of extraordinary stream,
Like blood or more – I am then an unconditional human. Yet I must step out
Of this room where I create monsters only to weep on their shoulders, to face
The more human things, like light and water, and sweet-eyed June, and
Spiders asleep amongst their poison.