Poem: Dragonfly

I've never posted or performed this one anywhere, which I guess makes this the first blog exclusive; it came at the start of the phase of trying to add structure to and improve my poetry, so it never felt good enough to be performed, and then quarantine hit. But looking back and with some editing, I'm actually okay with it. So, aside from some editing a few months ago, this is dated 4th November, 2019.

Dragonfly:

I dart from crisis to crisis like

A dragonfly over water:

Pupa for years dormant in the damp dark,

Beauty for the time it takes a single sunrise

To come around again.

My list of traumas is so long,

Every session with a new therapist is

Like a fucking powerpoint presentation;

I’m worried about writing a new poem about

Every life-changing piece of shit

In case the folks at my monthly

Poetry reading can’t keep up

With which we’re flying over this week.

 

You’d think I’m cursed –

I’m scared of curses,

Wear a crucifix and a quartz

Around my neck and clutch them both

When I feel a chill in the air,

Just in case it’s an ex with a cruel thought,

The girl at work I pissed off last week,

Some errant bit of evil in the air

Deciding that I’m to blame for the

Bad day someone else gave it.

 

If I’m cursed, it’s a curse of other

People’s cruelty; I’ve never had a bad day

I could blame on God or luck.

I don’t believe in karma,

But I do believe in being kind.

 

I’m easy to fall in love with, a

Smile as quick as my temper,

A bonfire for a heart glowing on

Iridescent wings.

But I’m hard to love.

My therapist tells me not to say that,

Says I don’t owe the world ease,

Says that no one is hard to love,

Some people just can’t be bothered to try –

I wish I had an answer,

Could tell you the definite truth,

But the truth is I still can’t convince myself

To stay here. Either I’m hard to love

Or I’m cursed:

One I can fix, the other I can’t,

And I’ve always been hell-bent on

Fixing everything I skim across.

 

I talk too fast when I

Overthink,

So fast people tell me to calm down and just

Get on with it because they don’t

Understand that skimming over the crises is

How I move,

That if I slowed down for a second I’d sink,

That every time I stop,

It’s a death for the next few years until my eggs

Hatch and pupae grow and I can be

The beauty they want again.

Everything is a problem when you look

Through the compound eye of trying

To fix it.

A dragonfly has more ommatidia

In its eye than any other insect,

Its reflexes faster and its rate of prey capture greater

Than any other predator in the world –

It’s why they move so fast,

Why a child points and falls in love

With the glimmer of blue there-and-gone

Then just a few seconds later is already

Bored

And frustrated

With being unable to track their path through the air.

 

I get jealous like you’ve never seen.

I covet like a dragon on its hoard,

Every pet name and in-joke and accidental

Brush of a hand too close to romantic

Hoarded under my claws;

And I get ugly when I hoard those empty promises,

All scales and fire and wings,

Crooked teeth and rotting breath.

I know it’s true, even though my therapist tells me

I’m not hard to love.

I try to be better,

But it’s hard to trust people when

Every friend, every lover, every parent,

Has eventually told me,

I was too easy to fall in love with

And too hard to love,

Like an iridescent dragonfly skimming over a pond

Dead by the next sunrise;

And I wonder if they wonder

Whether the dragonfly

Would be beautiful for a few more days

If only it stopped moving sometimes.