I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know

I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know 

By Olivia Gwyn

Instead—

the scattering of the leaves, the underside of the branches, the soft mud underfoot and the gentle unforeseen passing of days 

The weeping of the willows in my best friend’s backyard in June, her parents insisting we wear helmets, me, proud and foolish, determined to ride with

The wind in my hair, the world flying by my eyes, my heart too slow, too young to imagine what they feared, what they knew

How much there still was to lose

and how full my hands are,

how easily something could fall 

The real thing

The real thing

By Olivia Gwyn

I am trying to make a life, 

but I have to make dinner

and get my baby to sleep, 

but she won't go to sleep

So I strap her on me and boil pasta

and rock her and sing and

start to wonder what's wrong with her

– I mean, me

Until I finally get her down

and take a deep breath

and remind myself

this is the whole point

Until she wakes up 

and interrupts

my poem about her

and I forget

What a gift –

the real thing

These are the days

These are the days

By Olivia Gwyn

I catch my breath 

as the air pours through the windows

 

And it hits me out of nowhere

how many more times in my life will I get this view on a night like this

 

When the fields smell of fresh grass and damp earth and old hay

and the crickets are singing

to the darkness or the moon or each other

 

How many more drives home 

when home is a simple word 

 

It hits me like a bag of cement to the gut–

you’re going to miss this

 

Everything is changing

and it happens so fast

and we wish it away

for the next the better the best

 

But it never comes 

because there is only today 

and today is all we get

 

Only tonight–

the thin clouds

the lone star

the invisible brightness

headlights on the road

one hour down

on the way home

on the threshold of summer

 

Because all of a sudden two years from now is a week from Tuesday 

and nothing's ever going to be the same

 

So let me breathe in the air

and let tonight be tonight

Let me drive the roads of monotony

and let it settle in my bones

Let me feel it while it’s here

let me ache let me cry let me bang my head against the steering wheel turn the music up run my hands through my hair and be still 

 

Let me know that I am alive

and these are the days

These are my days

God–don’t let them slip away