about

I’m glad you’re here, fishing can be a lonely sport

I am looking to find bits of who I used to be, even if

(and especially if) they are juvenile and embarrassing

Among the rubbles you will find a disheveled Elizabeth Cotton

who came to me a little shy of nine years ago, in ten parts

an unwanted middle child who accused me of creating

her miserable existence just so I could continue to write

with her mousy brown hair, a sorry excuse of a muse

for a desperate teenage poet who somehow won awards

We fish her out, half assedly clean her up, wipe her nose

What have you got for us, Elizabeth? It’s been a while.

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

Robert Frost

Elizabeth Cotton

a poet made up by a poet

I have a job, and I have a busy life like everyone else. I sit in front of a screen all day, come home, and stare at a small screen while a big screen plays a show I've watched before. There is never enough time to stop and think, although of course there is.

There was a time when I wrote poems on the daily, in college. And in my musings for inspiration, Elizabeth Cotton came to me. She was me, but exaggerated. Her mother was even more cruel than my own. She felt the things I did, but more so. I pitied her, and she came and went.

Once in a while, inspiration strikes again and all I want to do is write poetry. And when I create something, I have a desire to share it. But poetry is such a private, personal thing.

Here, I share my poems. They are deeply personal, and they are the truth.

Except, of course, Elizabeth Cotton.