Laura Kiernan Poems

My skin, the jacket of my spirit, is a patchwork quilt to be worn for warmth.

The rough redness of my dry hands shows the signs of premature aging from all the writing I do while my hands are cold.
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I sing words that do not exist
In a language that is not real
Belonging to a people not of our world
I sing in tongues though I have no religion
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When I checked on my poems
A surprise was there
And it concerned me so
That I gripped my hair
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The classes I attended today
Were French, Victorian Literature, and math
But no one learned anything
Because no one really learns at college
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Have you ever noticed
How tired men
Walk defeated
Home?
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There are certain times
When the wind gets high
And I tumble around
Waving my arms
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I have tried and tried and goddammit, I can't figure it out
Because who I am is hidden to even myself
I wear the pale, pink skin of my French mother
And the black hair and eyes of my Navajo father
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To live in the haze of a permanent depression
Is also to live in the haze of lies
Because when I hold down a job, it's just for the money
Not for the satisfaction it gives me
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With the grassy Neil Young in my ears
And the rootsy Nickel Creek on the next track
I feel like I belong on this empty road
Even though I'll probably fail all my classes
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I have starved my stomach for six weeks
For six weeks I have only craved water
Searching for absent soul at the bottom of the glass
I pretend the water forms a river that carves its way through my body
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