The Prison of Time: Poems from 2023

Many people are burdened with too much unoccupied time, and they quickly fall into anxiety, loneliness, and all kinds of frustrating behaviors. I am the opposite: I feel the constant pull of never having time to either do or reflect upon doing, and I obsess and worry more about time than any other aspect of living. Though it shouldn't, time imprisons me except when I'm writing. These poems combine various strands of my heart's passions: music, travel, lost loves, the almosts, moments frozen within me, at least until my consciousness moves on to whatever studied warmth is to come.

Poetry distills. Reclaiming some of these moments and moving on from them through writing has been extremely joyous. Even remembered pain somehow tempers itself through poetry's mysterious alchemy. The poetic process is always a hopeful one, a longing to understand something—anything—better the next time. And poetry has music's uniquely brilliant assumption of a next time.