Izaac Bacik
CIRCLES
Writing this poem was 60% pacing.
My method also included 20% squeezing hand sanitizer into
the crevices between my fingers and keyboard keys,
10% tugging at my clothes and 10% worrying
that everything I write is going to be taken at face value.
These words are not my face.
I read somewhere that poetry has body and soul,
That poetry conveys life and death like
a memory or a photograph or the laughter of a
loved one- but my poetry doesn't smile.
You cannot take a picture like the ones in my head.
I tread steady circles around coffee tables and
stairwells and the downstairs of my parent's house
and I would circle the world if I wasn't afraid that
opening the front door might wake somebody up.
This poem isn't meant to wake anybody up.
This poem is room temperature water with a
peanut butter sandwich. This poem is checking the
windows with each circle around the main floor.
This poem is setting off firecrackers in the wake of
a fireworks show.
This poem is another circle because I'm always collecting more.
If I walk enough circles I'll catch up to my house,
and eventually out-pace all the secrets that got swept beneath the oven.
* * *
LOOKING IN THE MIRROR
I wish I could capture your beauty in bronze.
I wish my hands had the talent to recreate
the distance they've traveled from your navel
to the nape of your neck, across the scar on your clavicle.
I wish, that when I woke up in the morning,
to your sleepy eyes and lightly pouting lips,
that I had a picture of that instance when
your hands find my shoulders and your
head rests itself on my chest.
And if I could sculpt like the ancients did,
I could recreate your hips and thighs,
the swell of your breast and the light delicacy of
your deltoids flexing and the curve of your spine.
But I could never recreate your smile, or your laugh,
or the lighter pockets hidden in the mirror of your eyes,
so I could never truly duplicate the beauty I lay beside.
Izaac Bacik is 22 year old autistic individual currently pursuing degrees in sociology
and creative writing at University of North Carolina Asheville. He write earnestly about himself, embracing
his identity as autistic, and also his intersecting experiences as a cancer survivor, a transgender
individual, and being diagnosed with depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
|