“Congratulations! You’re dating a poet.” by Nic Morrison
Be prepared for lengthy waiting in between
messages—not for lack of desire, but rather for deleting retyping,
as we mine all of human language and experience for the right kind of prose with which to articulate a deep yearning from our time with you as something
inking and impressing itself,
like a sunrise,
a muse
born anew.
But that might be a lot so instead we respond I slept well last night, how are you?
This will continue until we can no longer hold it in. You should learn
to develop a taste for words of affirmation because you will wake up
to paragraphs and links to new poems we wrote
About you. About us.
About everything we’ve observed since we last spoke—which was just a few hours since the last sunset, but that's a long time when you’ve got a lot of poems to write.
I’ve heard if someone writes you one poem,
they love you, but if they write you one hundred poems
they just like writing poems.
That’s like saying Mother Nature doesn't care
for us because she gives us a sunrise and a sunset every day.
No, because If you believe a picture is worth one thousand words,
you should be prepared for ten thousand of them
every day.
Twice a day.
I will paint you murals
with this pen
of all the moments
I captured in my mind.
Be prepared for so many poems.
Of you. Of us.
Of sunrises and sunsets,
Of that random bug that flew by and got hit by a windshield,
or metaphors like that about life and other metaphors
that don't really make sense if you think too long about them
—but that's ok because they’re not supposed to be taken
literally. It's just about creating an emotion
collaged together by imagery and experience—
even if it takes ten thousand words to do it.
Which is a lot like love
or life.
Which is a lot like a bug that flew by and got hit
by a windshield.
But what does that mean?
you ask,
but
I’ve moved on
to other metaphors. Dating a poet is like building
Ikea furniture. The words are just pictures
you’re supposed to use to construct something.
Somehow. And you want it to just be listed out,
and the poet—or the Ikea Technical Writer
tells you that that’s what they’ve done,
You just have to look deeper.
And you’re like, it's just a tv shelf,
surely it's not that deep
But it's a metaphor
about love. Or life.
Or bugs getting hit by windshields.
But what does that mean?
It does not matter.
I have a new poem for you
Roses are red, violets are blue.
Furniture is supposed to represent love,
and the bug is supposed to represent
Truth. The windshield is the feelings we caught (or lost)
and the Ikea technical writer is the photographer
who is actually a poet writing you ten thousand pictures.
Which are metaphors
about sunrises and sunsets
which are about you.
Us. Life. Love.
You see, we’ve never really moved on from the metaphor.
Instead, we just keep reusing the same one
because there’s something there—
trust us—
We just need to workshop it a bit more.
If none of this makes sense
that‘s ok because Ikea furniture is made in Sweden,
and you can’t pronounce its name anyway.
I’m a poet—but really a bug,
and the windshield is a picture
of everything I am afraid
you’ll see so I keep it behind metaphors
and beg you to notice. I hope
we can figure out how to build the tv stand,
and watch sunrises and sunsets together—
pictures the universe gives
us instead of the ten thousand words it would take
to tell us twice a day every day
that life
is poetry.
Which is a lot like love.
If this just feels like a lot of words, you might be new
to dating a poet. In that case,
You are a bug
and this poem
is a metaphor about a windshield.
About Nic Morrison
They/Them
Nic is a Non-Binary poet hailing from Denver, CO, who exists primarily in the void. They are an avid writer and musician creating wherever and whenever possible. They believe in the power of art and language to unlock doors to the human experience that would otherwise remain solitary and shut, and can usually be found in various writing groups and open mics in the Denver Metro area.