ORNAMENTAL HERMIT

how the day rubs you raw, worn
like the nub of a well-used pencil. 
That same scratch, struggling 
to assemble graphite into meaning. 
I go to Tweet about it but my brain 
is half-digested homework.
Somehow we never escape middle
school, do we? Once it would’ve 
been feelings, tender. Wearing
the wrong body mist, haunted 
by tragic miasma & florals. Every 
eyeroll from an ex-friend a knife.
End of the world in snide giggles.
Now it’s a slow, dull paring. Waking
braced for the inertia of trouble.
Assign me to write it, I’ll tell you 
suffering has a shape, an arc. 
That all the tiny trials cascade 
into something beautiful. 
But I am older, you see, & have no need
for tidy narratives. I leave the paper 
blank & head to the woods.