Wax Poetic by Julia Johnson

new post every tuesday

  • Good Grief

    Good Grief

    There’s a sanctity that follows

    The saddest news you could ever hear

    That every action that follows

    Should be ceremonial

    And sacred

    And intentional

    And honest

    And beautiful

    That every interaction

    Should be meaningful

    And enhancing

    And evocative

    And profound

    And dutiful.

    Even so

    The great world spins.

    Can you picture the glamour

    Of the heaviest sigh

    From a beautiful young widow 

    Laying In a dark velvet robe

    That’s the grief whose hands 

    I’d like to grasp 

    A plea before falling

    Pulling me back from the edge

    I know I was meant to hold sadness

    For others and myself

    I find comfort in its familiar grip

    The same comfort I felt when

    I knew I needed to go back on my meds

    When I looked out the window

    And wanted to steep myself in the inky slurry

    Let it hold me and slip in all around me.

    That’s the grief whose hands

    I’d like to hold

    Like a trusted adult who will look both ways before

    Crossing for the both of us

    That is the grief whose hands
    I’d like to shake
    An accord agreed to
    Between equals in confidence, in secret

    That’s not the grief whose hands

    I get to clasp

    Instead it’s a beckoning finger curl

    Pulling me away from the glamorous day

    That’s not the grief whose hands

    I get to choose

    And the great world spins

    And the great world spins.

  • Laps

    Laps


    I try to find myself in every moment of solitude

    In an obsession to reaffirm my parts I’m proud of

    In an obsession to change the parts I’m not

    In an obsession to quantify every angle of my mind

    In an obsession to qualify every hill on which I’ve died

    My meditation happens best between the rumble strips in a 2009 Honda Pilot going 120 on the highway going back and forth between two homes 8 hours apart.

    Or in my local aquatic center between the hard plastic ropes in a clingy one piece and goggles going back and forth in chlorinated laps 50m apart.

    In both, my measured pacing lets me define myself to myself. 
    A selfish act in two parts, deciding who I want to be tomorrow, the day after and the next.

    With no plan of execution.
    I am the executioner to my own demise.
    The visionary to my own success.

    I try to find myself in every moment of solitude
    Only to end up back at the start.

  • Eat the end of a shotgun

    Eat the end of a shotgun

    He yelled through anonymous numbers

    Into a patient voicemail inbox

    Letting it echo, ruminate and marinate

    In the space between sender and receiver

    But he doesn’t know.

    How you’ll eat the end of that shotgun

    How you’ll chew on the metal tip

    Let the sharp edges crunch under your molars

    Chipping your teeth on its rounded edges

    Feel the metallic taste in your spit

    As you swirl its pieces with your tongue.

    The moon made you crave the feral ferric

    That his weak heart could never handle.

    He doesn’t know your jaw is stronger

    Than any weapon he’s ever carried.

    Eat the end of a shotgun

    And spit bullets from your pursed lips.

  • Headed West

    Headed West

    If you ever stop and look up 

    And see that beautiful mountain

    The one that brought you here

    and realize how beautiful it is.

    How you’ve laid cradle in its valley

    While it gave you new birth

    To the parts of you 

    that blossom each spring.

    If you ever stop and look up

    In the sunniest of days 

    And feel peach flush

    Back into your cheeks and spine.

    How you’ve sought solace

    In the joy of returning solstice,

    Warm breeze carrying

    All the creation I’ve risked to have.

    If you feel all of that

    On a warm spring day,

    It’s time to get out of there.

    Go somewhere where you hold it everyday.

  • 06-25-2022

    06-25-2022

    I’m watching petals fall one by one at an accelerating pace. 

    The metaphor a little too literal as Roe v Wade becomes Red v Any person holding a uterus in their pelvis

    I’m receding and regressing to a place where I felt safe. I don’t feel safe.

    The wet eyes of every woman who can see themselves in every woman are staring back.

    Another petal falls.

    I cleaned them all up an hour ago. The handfuls of red. 

    But they keep falling. 

    I can’t reach for them fast enough. 

    I want to shake the stem to see how many will fall

    But we already know who will fall

    It won’t be the elitist white wives of Supreme Court justices.

    I looked down for a minute and back up.

    There are more petals in piles now.

    I didn’t hear or see them fall

    But they did

    Tomorrow when I wake up

    They might even all be gone

  • Bad news

    Bad news

    I assume you heard the news over the phone

    The pause the caller had before.

    Extending the time of not knowing for just a little longer

    Making the space before the devastation hits

    Just a little bigger

    Hoping that they can offer you that one second more of peace

    Before you can lose a piece of you for ever

    The pulse before the contraction of yourself

    That you can never expand back into again

    That space filled with memories of giggling and harmonized drives

    That space filled with nights spent chasing the moon, call me maybe

    It’s a little smaller now. 

    Painting lines in a snow storm 

    And looking at bad views

    Is a little smaller now

    Making music

    Singing music

    Dancing to music

    It’s a little smaller

    All because of the voice that whispers after the pause.