“For the Love of Poetry”

Mario recently graduated from the University of Denver with a master’s degree in English. They miss all of their friends, but are having a fun time making new ones in their new home of Washington, D.C. Mario is currently working a variety of odd jobs, running the D.C. open mic circuit, and perfecting the skill of bumming cigarettes off strangers outside bars.

Instagram: @callmemarioplz

For The Love of Poetry

Poems are a funny thing.

They take seconds, weeks or sometimes eons to write

but they disappear

as soon as I finally get to read them.

I’m not quite sure what to make of that.

I don’t think it’s fair—

our hard work just down the drain—

but neither is life.

Therefore, I suppose,

just like ball,

poems are life.

But how would that work?

Earlier today I had the following thought:

love doesn’t vanish, it simply moves on;

reshaping itself, kind of like matter,

into a more suitable form.

For example,

I wrote this poem in a notebook an ex got me:

one collaged with shows we loved and characters I adore.

I still geek out over Spider-Man—obviously—

and cherish Wagner Moura in Narcos.

I just do these things alone.

Well, not alone.

I do them in this notebook.

The one with pages built by someone loved and lost.

The same one currently being filled with these words