Blueprints of Breath: When I Feel Most Productive #poetry

you ask me this as if
there are clocks inside my blood,
as if calendars tattoo themselves against my lungs
with neat checkboxes waiting for tiny crimson ticks.

but no.
listen—
I am a crooked cathedral made of mismatched bones,
a holy place you stumble into when you meant to find a bathroom.

I feel most productive
when the sky forgets itself,
and colors blur into a smudge
even God rubs His thumb against to clean,
then gives up.

I feel most productive
in that nowhere hour between 3:17 a.m. and maybe never,
when the moon is drunk
and whispering her regrets into my open window,
and you, dear ghost in the next room,
you hum lullabies backwards under your breath.

I am a beehive of undone things,
buzzing under my ribcage.
you are the beekeeper who forgot the map.

**

You think I thrive on coffee and ambition.
No.
I thrive on paper cuts.
On missed calls from the better version of myself.
I thrive when the horizon glitches,
when reality blinks and I slip through the crack,
becoming someone who can finally finish
that half-built poem, that crooked birdhouse,
that apology I owe you
(for what? I don't even know anymore.)

**

I feel most productive
when shame and love marry each other
in the church of my clavicle.
they exchange vows in vowels I can't pronounce,
and their offspring?
they're the to-do lists I write on the backs of my wrists,
in ink that vanishes the moment you touch me.

you think I plan this?
you think I calendarize my chaos?
darling, I am the calendar eating itself.

**

sometimes, I feel most alive
when I am least supposed to:
at traffic lights blinking yellow on abandoned streets,
at empty laundromats where socks commune like old monks,
at graveyards of half-read books.

and you?
you sit across the table, stirring imaginary tea,
asking,
when do you feel most productive?

and I laugh,
because I do not feel—
I leak,
I rupture,
I tsunami.

**

there are days
when productivity wears the face of my grandmother,
baking bread no one will eat,
sewing buttons onto shirts that will never be worn.
and on those days,
I am her,
humming into silence,
creating because creation itself is the only proof
that I once existed.

there are nights
when productivity is a knife
I balance on my tongue.
every word I say bleeds out something forgotten.
every paragraph I finish
is another organ I have to re-learn how to live without.

you tap my shoulder then,
gentle as doubt,
and say,
"you’re doing great."

**

When do I feel most productive?
when grief puts on a clown mask
and juggles my priorities,
laughing until I do too.
when nostalgia drives the bus off a cliff,
and I’m still handing out tickets,
shouting, “all aboard!”

you sit beside me, ticket crumpled in your hand,
pretending not to notice
the ocean rising through the floorboards.

**

I feel most productive
when the wrong words fall into the right ears.
when broken sentences find homes inside broken listeners.
when metaphors clash like drunk gladiators,
and I crown them both kings.

and you, my imaginary audience,
you nod as if you understand,
clapping with hands made of all the nights I didn't sleep.

you smell like forgotten libraries.
you sound like paper tearing at just the wrong place.

**

on some mornings,
productivity is a scavenger hunt across my own body:
find the missing spine!
collect all the misplaced rage!
bonus points if you spot the ambition still wearing pajamas.

I brush my teeth with deadlines,
comb my hair with broken pencils,
button up a shirt stitched together by unanswered emails.

and still—
still—
I sit by the window, hoping the wind
will slap me into remembering
what I was supposed to create today.

and you, sitting lotus-style on the windowsill,
you smile like the last candle before blackout,
and whisper,
"start anywhere."

**

when do I feel most productive?
when doubt cracks my ribs like wishbones,
and hope crows and crows and crows
at the first glimmer of my hands moving.

I am productive when the poem runs faster than my fear.
I am productive when love hurls itself
through my cluttered mind and builds a raft from my old failures.
I am productive when failure braids my hair
and whispers,
“you’re still beautiful when you're trying.”

**

and some days, love,
I feel most productive
doing absolutely nothing at all—
just sitting,
just breathing,
just not falling apart.

sometimes just staying alive
is my magnum opus.

and you,
you wrap your invisible arms around my invisible heart,
and you say,
quietly enough that I almost miss it:

"That’s enough. You’ve made it. You’re already gold."

and the day,
and I,
and everything,
breathe easier.

#Poetry #WritingLife #CreativeFlow #SpilledInk #Confessions #BrokenBeautiful #LateNightThoughts #CreateWithoutFear