The Ralph Waldo Emerson Blues

  1. It's really too strange
    How reading something written on paper
    By a man who died 100 years ago
    Is making me want to destroy myself
    And rebuild everything again.
  2. At first I didn't believe what he had written
    (My friends certainly don't,
    And I still don't want to.)
    But it stayed with me
    Aching, destructive, beneficial.
  3. So I'm tearing myself down,
    Laying a foundation of questions.
    Painful and victorious.
    Even if I don't know the answers yet.
    Sometimes it is not multiple choice.
    But the fact that I am asking questions,
    As much as they sting,
    Makes me wonder:
  4. Is this only shedding a skin,
    Or losing a tooth?
    It feels more like wingbuds
    Ripping through to where my shoulder blades used to be.