white spaces

white spaces

White spaces scare me: Brand new notebook pads, 

the hue of morning light, and breakfast plates

without a smear— the blank replacement card

in Bicycle poker decks, the empty space

after a poem’s lines, and seven squares

of unplanned week. I do not trust myself 

to realize their emptiness. 

      I far 

prefer the parasitic company of

poorly written fiction, noisy rooms

where voices outshout thought, long restless nights 

of Sabbath rest when Netflix series drum 

their senseless beat behind my eyes to quiet 

my fear of silence. 

    What is is far more safe 

than what could be, and fruitless actualities 

can never blossom seeds of death,

 or life. 

Fertile soil can foster both—they scare me,

they call me, these white spaces.