Mistakes I Make When I’ve Missed My Chance to Sleep
written by: James Cole
It’s almost two AM when
I remember that no one writes poems about board games
and, if they did, they would probably avoid the word ‘meeple’
altogether, because
in postmodern poetry
‘meeple’ means cutting oneself on an angle grinder,
and in romantic poetry
‘meeple’ means flesh tag on the roof of a pizza-burned mouth,
and in confessional poetry
‘meeple’ means practicing holding your breath in the bath,
and in bad poetry
‘meeple’ means me…and the people, which makes too much sense,
and in loud poetry
‘meeple’ means going so hungry you eat the crumbs under the couch,
and in soft poetry
‘meeple’ means not being hungry but eating the crumbs under the couch anyway,
and in my poetry
‘meeple’ means round micelles of laughter coming from my neighbors’ apartment.
I can hear them, dice clucking together like top and bottom beaks, pawns
upon cardboard, and Wednesday so forgotten I might as well forget it too.
It’s almost three AM when
I remember that no one writes poems about envy anymore either,
which is fine by me. I know how it is, and that’s not what this is about.
- Mistakes I Make When I’ve Missed My Chance to Sleep - March 11, 2024
