Author’s note: Quickwords, among other things, has served as documentation of my mental health and character. In the time since I wrote these poems, I have grown and my understanding of myself and the world has changed, and I have no doubt that I will continue to do so well after the volumes that exist at the time of your reading. If you’re starting here, I welcome you to this milestone in a very long journey of mine. I hope it may help you understand your own.
-Aaron Veasna Mackenzie, Aug 19, 2020, 8:35 am
Welcome to Quickwords. They won’t be quick, but they’re here.
Quickwords will be a frequently updated collection of poems that my isolated mind produces in some peculiar attempt to process the halting existence that looms before it. Let it be known that today, April 2nd, is the beginning of this journey. April 2nd. The day after the day when this would’ve felt like a joke. Now everything does.
Anyway, here’s the thing.
Vol. 1 – Darlings
| When it’s good to kill |
| I have an addiction An addiction to the diction that I pretend is a trophy But more than a trophy I distract you with prose and hope in ambitious pain that you will abandon the observation of the void beneath it I distract you with my greatest attempt at sophisticated writing and hope like a daring darling of a liar’s omission that you won’t see that I can construct words but not stories I distract you, fist clenching, in words gripping — I’m gripping — your mind, hoping that you will not see I distract you, raising arms, in sentences for which I continue to make claims of splendor I distract you, chin raised, nerves steeled, and beg you not to look anywhere other than the words I distract you as a chill runs down my spine, for I am incapable of creating story I distract you, hands trembling, breath held, because I fear my weakness I distract you, reader, and resolutely pull the trigger It’s good to kill my darlings It’s good to kill the things borne of my mind, the things I pretend are beautiful but aren’t yet It’s good to kill the darling of my ego To kill the darling that is confidence of permanence To put a bullet through the parts of my brain that hold me back To put a bullet through the parts of my brain that give me guilt for failure For me to to kill the darling that was a weaker mind And live again, live stronger, with the vigor of rebirth |
| March 12th |
| It was a bridge upon which we had three months of bliss ahead It was a bridge upon which we walked with whimsy and rue It was a bridge whose end we neared slowly With joy in our gaits With resistance to the constant haste of life With smiles tapering when we looked not at each other But at the dirt road that hovered in the beyond distantly near There was a bridge we walked in arms There was a bridge we walked in company new and wonderful There was a bridge we walked with company that changed like tides Now those that I was to walk with to the end of this bridge that we have known forever Those that I followed behind by the cycle of a star-bound rock They float We float We now float in the void When the bridge returns I will still have ground to trek But they will have none They will be gone They will be in the fog that hazes what I cannot discern to be sunrise or sunset ahead There will have been no threshold for them to cross No grandiose conclusion to the journey in which their lives have been built I will not see them walk that stage with gowns and caps and lei and diplomas and smiles and tears and vigor of life There will be no vibrant reminder of what we walk for I will not see my friends, my darlings, the people who live close in my widening heart I will not see them cross that bridge They will cross through the void and reappear in the foggy, dirty road ahead And I will walk with the few of us left We will be dismal, more broken to stare at the road May the phantom footsteps of a darling make me better appreciate the ground I have yet to walk |
