The Voices Project
Follow us
  • POETRY LIBRARY
  • ABOUT
  • SUBMIT
  • RESOURCES

This Thing That I Am Good At~ By Patricia Wentzel

7/16/2018

0 Comments

 
this thing that i am good at
the product of a fractured mind
mended awkwardly
with gorilla glue, baling wire and Scooby Do bandaids
the rough repairs mostly invisible to you but not to me
not to me

this thing that i am good at
lives in the spaces of that brokenness
the interstices where the parts no longer fit neatly together
the smooth slip of one thought
to the next to the next
in a cascade of certainty
now a faltering slide down a scree-strewn slope

this thing that i am good at--
doesn’t care what speed my thoughts can achieve
or whether I can recall people’s names
or wonder why words regularly elude me
me, the word-smith of the family

no, this thing that i am good at--
it can strike like a kingfisher
breach with the potency of the great blue whale
drag me over a cliff slowly
like molasses in the dead of winter
and the motion is everything until it stops
and then it is nothing


Author Bio:
Patricia Wentzel is a mental health advocate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She started writing poetry in late 2014 and it played a central role in her recovery from a severe episode of Bipolar Disorder. Her writing has been nurtured by the Sacramento Prose and Poetry Meetup, the Women’s Wisdom Art Program and many of the poets who call the Sacramento Poetry Center home. She has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Neutrons Protons, The Light Ekphrastic, Sacramento Voices Anthology and others.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Poet Search

    by last name

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012

    RSS Feed

Contact The Voices Project: editors@thevoicesproject.org