Want

I certainly don’t consider myself a poet, but every once in a while I give it a shot. When I wrote “Want” as a poem, it was seven stanzas long, but it wasn’t very good.

What I did have in my head, however, was the exact painting I wanted to paint to go with it, even if the poem was a bit raw and unfinished. So I went out to Goodwill and found the exact blue mug I wanted, and after going to numerous locations found the exact glass ashtray I pictured. The book is an Elmore Leonard novel, minus the hardcover wrap.

I still have the pack of cigarettes I bought for some reason. There are eighteen left inside after burning the two I used for the painting, if you know anyone who’d like them.

After a few months of working on “Want” as a poem, I decided the painting was better than the poem itself. I did, however, pull two stanzas from it I think say as much as I wanted to say:

Old toys still packed in boxes
Framed pictures on the walls
The calendar’s two months behind
A dog to top them all

The dreams I had when I was young
My words tucked in a drawer
One day they’ll all be memories
But for now, I’m making more