Love Poem: Journal Entry
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Written by: Spenser Jones

Journal Entry

I lacked a lot of sleep these past couple of months.

and abandoned the routine I’ve grown so comfortable with

in this time by myself.

I didn’t realize how much slack was in my learning curve lately,

and I was starting to forget how incredible it is to wake up by

hairs being plucked from my arms.

Miracle workers.

My mother is the only one who saw me lose patience.

2 am on the wood floor, sweating like I just got done fighting.

Spewing out questions to God as fast

one would spit out sour milk.

Ground stomper. Neighbor waker.

A lot of people didn’t really like me talking to them during this time,

just like I didn’t like anybody talking to me

when I’m too busy worrying.

I was a jerk.

My swings get triggered far less than ever before

now that I’m more squared up with stability.

I’ve come a long way from a short fuse.

I sure am glad my brother was there to cover for me

while my sanity took a break, and

in the moments I had to check out

because the tantrums in my own mind got too loud.

My own thoughts, or yours. 

Together or separate. Relative or irrelevant.

It has been a roller coaster school year so far

for more reasons than are appropriate to detail herein.

Thank goodness for the true friends,

and the doors of her aunties house

and ice cream, and mindless television on soccer trips,

and family,

and people looking at me like a role model,

and the act of blowing on my little cousins belly,

and my skateboard, and Mother’s Day,

and having food, and graduations,

and getting lost sometimes,

and poetry slam night, and for Steven Brooks.

and for my elephant.

Really y’all, every last one.

L. Cohen said,

“And draw us near

and bind us tight

all your children here

in their rags of light

in our rags of light

all dressed to kill

and end this night

if it be your will.”