from I Mean

I mean to say

I mean I keep meaning to

I mean amending

I mean correcting

I mean qualifying

I mean collecting

I mean X + X + X

and so forth

I mean all possible values

I mean adding

I mean and also

I mean pileups happen

when you can’t see

where you’re going

I mean where you are

I mean your hand

in front of your face

I mean my hand

I mean if that’s all

I can see

I mean if that’s all

I’m looking at

I mean that’s not all

I mean there is no end

I mean this isn’t the beginning

I mean only means

I mean blow the house down

with breathlessness

I mean a house of breathlessness

I mean the walls

are braced

against themselves

I mean brace yourself

I mean to take the house down

with its own components

I mean throw the whole deck at it

I mean two-by-fours and oven mitts

I mean rocks

hucking them

at walls of rocks

I mean self-healing walls

I mean with insipid pocks

I mean BB dings in street signs

I mean bullet holes in stop signs

I mean to riddle

I mean all signs point to “yes”

I mean eyelids are designed to admit some light

I mean sound

I mean boom

I mean faster than gravity

I mean I am not equal to the work

I mean I’m over my head

I mean hovering

I mean levitating

I mean light as a feather

wide as a plane

I mean fight as a feather

(infinitesimally)

I mean I’m going to talk about it

I mean talk about it

by talking about

talking about it

I mean write about it

I mean scrape it all towards me

with the edge of my hand

I mean like a spray of crumbs

I mean pile

I mean to pile up

and get on top of

I mean for the prospect

I mean for the pea

beneath the mattress

I mean to feel the ceiling

I mean to figure it

like a mime

I mean just imagine it

I mean kiss it

I mean I’m already running out of air

I mean steam

I mean fire

I mean fight it

I mean feed

I mean with fire

I mean fire

is not finite

only fuel

I mean light

is not finite

only illumination

I mean things to illuminate

I mean to throw shadows

I mean I have an important

question: is this important?

Copyright Credit: Kate Colby, "from “I Mean” (pg 8-12)" from I Mean. Copyright © 2015 by Kate Colby. Reprinted by permission of Ugly Duckling Presse.

Source: I Mean (Ugly Ducking Presse, 2015)