Void

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #30

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 30

You do not have to stop

When time does

Keep writing

Through the void.

Despair

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #29

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 29

You are the consequence of loving deeply:

You are piles of shattered glass

Made in one fell shock of power

Waved over the roof of my home.

I will hold you in the cupped hands

At the end of outstretched arms.

Because you’ve arrived again, predictably,

And I am tired and want to be far away,

To rest in comfort and predictability,

(the kind that I control).

Ars Poetica (10 Years)

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #28

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 28

I found what I was looking for:

Not in his sharp blue eyes,

Not in my backyard celebration,

Not in holding perfectly shaped hands,

Not in prolonged eye contact,

Not in the slick movements of a dance party,

Not saying I love you more often-

I found what I was looking for in words:

Crisp skilled metaphors,

Mirrors for the things only I can see,

Connections that I can create,

Intimate ways of looking between us,

Slow curved movements among the flowers,

This is the intimacy I’ve been needing.

The Importance of Pop Culture

I'm changing it up a little today and NOT using the prompt from the NaPoWriMo website! Instead, here is a little thing I wrote during a workshop on writing poetry about pop culture with Baruch Porras Hernandez [awesome dude/poet- I LOVED the workshop!].

It's not easy to talk about helplessness,
So instead we dress up like superheros:
Combination BatThor Iron Pantherman
and his trusty sidekick Wonder Flash Hulk!
We take turns robbing a bank and then
Being the heroes who rescue the money.
With high kick sound effects and gutteral yells
We become the fantasy of power he needs:
Both acceptance of bad judgment mistakes
And the ability to save himself from the results.

EMDR

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #26

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 26

What’s the worst part of this for you?

The way the edges of your body

Wave uncertainly and lose their shape?

The hot glowing red knot in your stomach?

The images flashing boldly behind your eyelids,

Taking you back to the moment they happened,

Making you feel the burning on your skin?

Take a deep breath and follow that.

Follow that

Follow that to automatic muscle movements

Taking care of the things you couldn’t do before

Follow that to the tightness in your chest

Watch it as if from a train, follow that

Scenery but not too closely, follow it as far as you need-

And then let it go. It’s followed you long enough.

Spring

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #25

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 25

Meandering wind carries yellow buds

to far corners of the city while

Green branches reach out hands

to grab and hold new colors as

Offerings, continuing the cycle

of planting, birth, growth, removal, sharing.

Why isn’t this time

The start of a new year?

Sea Snail

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #24

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 24

Combing the beach I find a tiny curved shell

That looks like it once danced around and hugged

The body of the snail who used to live there.

I wear it close to my heart in an effort to feel

The waves that formed it, the rhythm

That pushed it to the surface and left it

As an offering, a view into the vast depths

That I will never really see. I burrow

Myself into the wet sand, watch the sun set

On a glassy blue sky, feel the salt

Cover my legs, and dream, smiling,

About floating and moving without weight

As a way of living, nothing holding me back.

Animals

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #23

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 23

It happens like this:

45 minutes of giggling and noises

Under a table covered by a blanket;

Or moving hands back and forth in sand

Watching with a serious face;

Or 13 hands of Uno

where we both win and lose;

And then-

Rapid fire questions, tears, an image,

Throwing things around in anger:

The voices and the power arise.

It’s not like those chicks swirling in a machine

Or the kitten separated and left behind

Or the hard-eyed bunny lifted off the ground

Or the dog bleeding, unaware of how it started.

These, without words, never have moments of insight

That I can share or guide them to

No paintings or songs or moments of recognition.

Without voices that I can understand,

I feel helpless in their powerlessness.

Fortuitous

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #22

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 22

I often reflect on how I got to where I am today:

In such fortunate circumstances, my life

Folding around and embracing my needs;

My unpredictable and ever-growing needs.

How lucky am I!

That I didn’t become a teacher

Just as treatment of teachers

Slipped into a relentless mudslide of disrespect-

Or an evangelical missionary

Who would later face an identity crisis,

An apology tour, and a return to school-

Or a violinist who couldn’t hold her violin

Because of aching muscles turning to stone

And a cat who wants to demolish my instrument-

Or a wife, feeling claustrophobic,

No longer attracted to her husband

Our faces melting under unmet needs.

I have lived a providential life:

Patient, intuitive, listening.

I have found my home, my identity

A career that I can handle

And people who love me as I truly am;

I’ve had time to experiment

with comfort and discomfort;

To find a routine that keeps me running smoothly.

I am indebted to the light hands that pushed me

Away from the noise of what’s expected

Toward a life that is settling

Into whatever shape I need it to be.

How Did I Get Here?

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #21

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 19

From her narrow, cold bed, this wingspan

Flaps unbelievable, with fire feathers

And thick arms, free and willingly

Following a map of her own creation,

In swoops and spirals, holding light bouquets

And raining petals, so generously,

Eventually settling in glitter colors of pink and blue

Bright lights, a personal sun, a voice that carries.

What an escape, what a fever dream!

These riches that alight at just the right moment,

These 3,000-mile smiles, these soft hands

That encourage her with heart shaped breezes

Toward torsos connected by daisy chains,

No longer drowning in dark heavy rivers,

No longer blindly stumbling under stone umbrellas-

It took so long to learn how to fly.

A Valentine for Emily

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #20

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 19

I told you and told you and told you again,

I love you, you’re worth it,

You mean so much to me.

You heard it in my voice,

Heard it in my poems,

The miles traveled,

The letting you back in

every 3 years or so.

You just asked why they would let

High schoolers read Camus,

What was the purpose of the people we helped

Do you want to get together?

You said of course we’ll stay in touch

Your texts as long as e-mails

Your e-mail never changing

Never lasting for more than a month.

I thought your voice

Was the only echo of that time

That time I fell in love with life,

Burst into song,

Lived wholeheartedly for a few months.

But we said, let’s go to poetry readings

and I heard someone else

Singing the same song on paper.

She reminded me recently

That words befriend me regularly

That these, too, are joy,

That there’s more than you to listen to.

With every day and every page

Your echo becomes softer, weaker

Replaced with the awakening song

Of poetry in every corner of my heart.

Abcedarian

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 19

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 19

[Well this was an interesting prompt that led to some nonsensical sentences and will probably just be used for inspiration later! Here are 3 different poems:]

Aware before coming down

every fearful ghost hears

inwardly joking, kindly

looking, meaning nothing.

Optimism predates quality

Reveries sung together

Understood very well

Exactly your zen.

Admittedly bored, causing downward

Excitement for girls here.

I jest! Keeping love mine,

Never opening publicly,

Quitting repetitive stories.

They understand, viciously wielding

Excitement, youth, zeal.

Affirmative: I try to

Be, I try to

Care.  I avoid

Death- it’s too much

Excitement. I hold

Feelings, whatever I can

Grasp, whatever remains

Hollow while I guide you

Inward. It’s believed that

Just continuing, just

Keeping on, can find the

Love that you

May want, may

Need- but there are other

Options. You just need to

Process, keep digging, don’t

Quit. You, too, will

Rise, you, too, will live to

Tell your story, and to be

Understood. You have so much

Value, do not let yourself

Wither under the

Expectations of every else.

Zeal is waiting for you.

I start grieving you before you’re dead.

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 18

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 18

5 years ago they told me it’d be cancer for sure;

I worried about your teeth getting too long,

And I expected him to be electrocuted.

But here you are, in 2019, losing inches slowly,

Sparse hair fading without a place to hold on,

Still lunging at me for fear I might not feed you.

Loss takes so much time for me to prepare.

I’m so afraid of losing you

That you’re already gone.

Play

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 17

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 17

A child buries a police officer in the sand

Then throws snakes and spiders across the room

While screaming, first horrified, then laughing at

The power he’s been given. When he spreads

Amalgamations of miniature toys over and under

And outside of the box the woman watches

And holds their meanings in order to reflect them back

At just the right angle- the angle that highlights

The child’s control and bounces healing light

Onto his wounds. This repetition, weekly,

Brings a gradual change to his face

And the volume of his voice. He is leaving his trauma

In the capable hands of the sand.

Things I've Talked About With my Therapist

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 16

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 16

Dreams. Both awake and asleep, and their meanings, and why they recur.

My mother, of course. No self-respecting therapist could ignore her.

My cat, especially the way he sits on my chest when I’m sick.

My mother’s mother, and her siblings, and their patterns.

Breastfeeding and related activities.

My recurring nightmares from childhood.

My cat, and the healing properties of his purr.

Money and health insurance and various changes therein.

Politics and elections and how I’ve been harmed

And who else has been harmed and how I can’t save them.

My cat’s ongoing battles with asthma and the solution my vet found.

The way my head floats upward and how

I bring it down by pressing my feet into the ground below.

The pictures of my cat that I look at when my feet can’t hold down my head.

The various unfolding traumas over the course of my life

The adaptive mannerisms I’ve found for coping

And always the cat, stable in his furry simplicity.

Catch and Release in the Desert

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 15

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 15

Travelers, historically, come here for healing,

Regaled by tales of dry nothingness

Cleansed yearly in monsoon rain-

The creosote alone feels like a miracle.

I had 7 years of healing before I caught what ails me now.

The ache moved like a glacier from my heart to my bones,

Dug canyons in my muscles and left sediment in my blood;

Desert healing left me exposed to foreign parasites.

Now I spend my days catching the dead ones,

Digging them out and releasing them to make space

For cured skin and exploration of what’s left. I healed

So that I could suffer, this time, to completion.

Homonyms and Homophones and Homographs

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 14

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 14

Tell me why you prey

On their swollen tongues,

On migrants who emigrated

So they could immigrate here

Along a torturous tortuous road

Away from elusive illusions

When you can’t write the difference

Between epitaph and epithet

Or envy and jealousy

Or accept and except-

I’m alluding to the truth that eludes you-

We’re a parody of parity

Asking them to speak our language

Without first knowing and owning our own

homonyms and homophones and homographs.

Boudoir

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 13

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 13

Shadows draped suggestively

Turn her into a mystery,

With novel shapes folding into

Fresh feelings. The outcomes

Are only hers to discover.

Travel

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 12

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 11

After a long, varied childhood

It’s nice to stay home

To have this colorful place, set

Just the way I like it. To have pets

And financial stability, one toothbrush

That I never forget.

I finally set out to travel

When I was 27. It took that long

To find the resources I needed,

To have the adventure I longed for-

And I immediately became homesick.

The adventure was ethereal

While in my home my cats paced

My plants grew and my rabbits chewed.

I have bits of Argentina to hold onto,

Bits that often slip from sweaty palms

When I’m feeling anxious and uneasy.

I work harder to hold onto what’s right here:

What I needed when I was a child;

What I had to scrape for and build on my own;

Where I don’t need a map to go around the block.

I am the adult I always needed,

This is the home I always craved.

Origin Story

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 11

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 11

I don’t know where I came from.

I hold too many stories:

One imagined origin story,

One boring, step by step list of how I grew,

One scientific, biological story,

One full-length cinematic feature

And the words of the eyes who watched it.

The loudest story is this one:

The one written in my organs and on my skin,

Haunting feelings that pop up again and again

And scream about things I can’t remember seeing.

It’s brash and it’s blurry;

I don’t trust what it says, even when it feels

Like solid truth reverberating and

Making sense of all the other origin stories in my grip.

I want to piece together all that made me

The superhero that I am today.

So I will keep listening to each part,

Training my eyes to interpret the pictures

And my tongue to translate the words;

Until I recognize my powers and my name

And the profound meaning behind them.

Gullywasher

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 10

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 9

“It’s gonna be a real gullywasher”

The gardener growled, while pulling

Spiked weeds from outside my window.

I had no idea what to expect.

“Never let your children play in the wash”

The sign said, over a firefighter

And a limp, wet child.

I didn’t know what I’d gotten into.

I moved here for the weather, the

Dry hot sunshine and

The clearing, sparkling monsoons;

Letting me start over and over and over.

Layers of skin washed away

and then I burn and then I bathe

in aloe and inhale creosote

over and over and over.

Gullywashers and bumblegrass and

Half a dead rabbit and lemon trees

And flash floods and dry sand:

I love you Tucson, for all I never expected.

Things I Could Write About

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 9

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 9

I will never be able to stop writing.

There are too many things to be noticed,

Examined, proclaimed, and explained.

Even things that have already been discussed:

They need to be shouted about from my perspective

For the person who has never been able

To understand all the other ones.

There is looking back to the past

To find the angle that new wisdom brings;

There is bursting out news from the present

In glitter and blood and vocalizations

That could come from my tongue alone.

What questions do you have? What

Minutiae about spring have you glossed over?

What images need your attention?

I will be there to write about them,

Observantly, uniquely, unabashedly

As long as I’m needed.

A Therapist in Therapy

Based on the following prompt: Prompt # 8

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 8

I was instructed to paint my arms

Crossed behind my back,

So we wouldn’t have to paint the hands.

In my line of work,

Absence of hands means sexual abuse.

In her mind,

She was just trying to

Make life less complicated.

I think about her when my therapist

Tries to interpret the pain in my ankle:

The one with no discoverable cause;

The one that has ached for 20 years.

In her mind, it means I was attacked.

In my life, it’s just a symbol, a crying out

Of all the things I can no longer do.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Pass It on

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #7

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 7

I’m ready to let go of the things I think I deserve.

I believe I deserve them; I do.

I’ve cherished them, danced with them

laughed and cried and felt tangible emotions with them.  

I’m opening my arms and letting go of them

To help others find the things they deserve,

Humming beneath the surface.

Queers in December

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #6

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 6

In a small apartment full of queers in December

A cloud forms over the crowd: our sexuality

Isn’t the only thing we have in common.

We compare scars, tragedies, and the things

That still envelop us today. If all of our

Parts could join the conversation we’d hear:

I couldn’t run when I needed to and I’m sorry.

I wanted to carry you far away but I turned to stone

              Under so much pressure.

I spent too much time sending blood so you could flight

That I couldn’t keep you healthy.

I don’t blame you for not staying straight and upright;

              Lower ground seems safer and better hidden.

My aching is my weeping for all that you lost

              And your efforts to get something back.

I hear them now, and I hope to help them speak

Clearly and loudly enough that their screaming

Can stop someone else from suffering.

Fortress

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #5

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 5

[I love the concept of a villanelle and I love the idea that I was trying to express here. I think whenever I try to fit a specific form, though, it starts to sound too forced. I'll have to play with this again in the future!]

I built my fortress walls too thick, so

I threw a party to launch myself out into the world;

I want so badly to be whole and open-hearted.

When this soul became too much to hold, I craved

a loud and raucous celebration of life but

I built my fortress walls too thick.

And now I’m left with luck and privilege

That I climb with heavy feet and wooden legs;

I want so badly to be whole and open-hearted.

The surrounding hands like spokes are blurred

They support and lift at every moment but

I built my fortress walls too thick.

We continue spinning forward and I

Can only see clearly when we’re stopped.

I want so badly to be whole and open-hearted.

I assembled a tent too small in my backyard

I tried so hard to rest with you there with me

I built my fortress walls too thick

I want so badly to be whole and open-hearted.

Sad

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #4

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 4

With my ex-boyfriend- the boring one,

The blank slate without feelings-

We just watched films that were fun

Except when they left me reeling.

The jilted queer lover, the Cat

Who was thrown from a car,

Baby chicks in a factory vat

Swirling downward, so far

From comfort and the known,

So much confusion, unexplained

I relived the fear of being left alone

A child in the park, pained.

Education

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #3 

[And also a conversation I had recently with a client]

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 3

I don’t know what happened when I was young.

I spent hours in books-

              At the breakfast table

                             In the car

                                           Outside with the neighbors

                                                          During lunch at school

Sometimes reading two at once

Sometimes making projects about what I read

                             In the middle of summer-

Yet I know nothing

Of keeping house and being an adult:

Subsisting on spaghetti and a George Forman grill, never fixing a thing,

Living only with furniture and clothes I received from friends,

hiring a house cleaner because I kept getting sick;

Dating cisgender men,

panicking during sex,

and grasping onto people who didn’t grasp back.

None of those books I read had any pragmatic instructions.

As an adult, I fold my life around to the modern version

of two books at once in social situations:

Alternating between Pintrest and Instagram and

              How-to podcasts and tv shows about cooking and

                             adults who will keep me pointed in the right direction

One new piece of furniture, one kitchen knife, one box of produce

              At a time.

As I open up into adulthood, my home and I

              Become more colorful, more organized, cleaner, and more full of flowers.

Questions

Based on the following prompt: Prompt #2

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 2

[This is what it's like to be a therapist.]

The answers to any questions you ask

Are available within yourself.

(But what if I’m lost?)

I want to take your hand and show you the steps;

In a mirror; reflecting the questions back to you.

(But what if my hand shakes?)

Let me teach you how to find them

on your own, so you don’t need me-

(But what if I forget the instructions?)

So your eyes can focus, your legs

Become strong and sure of the dance.

(But what if I’m wrong?)

How to Break Back Open

From: Prompt

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 2

How to Break Back Open

Those few months were an oasis, a paradise

Unmedicated strong emotion, I came alive

For the first time. I lived with arms open,

My whole heart exposed, I jumped

And fell; I broke down.

Cracked bones heal by becoming

Encased and unmovable, untouched

and shriveling. I followed the

doctor’s instructions; I became encased

and unmovable, untouched and shriveling

for too long, just in case, even after

the cast was removed.

I kept reading the wrong instructions:

On how to release strong emotions,

to lift my arms from my sides,

How to break my chest back open,

To find the hiding pieces of my heart.

No one else could articulate the correct steps.

I had to pull the instruction manual from the past

And gasp, and cry with joy over this talent

I already had. I followed the steps and burst

Back open; glittering, sparkling, gleaming

More clearly than before. I’ve always known the

Instructions; I never needed anyone else’s manual.

Self-Portrait As Everyone I've Ever Dated

Based on the following prompt: Early Bird Prompt

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 1

Each one creates a shape along the outline of my body,

Building a landscape as we move.

I have become a continent, full of waves and partially cloudy skies;

Able to build small boats for curving rivers

And take careful steps through rocky terrain;

I can handle the storms, now, and the vast, tedious fields.

Yet even after all these years and all these skills,

I’m still writing myself as insecure attachment

to everyone else. I’m still obsessed with

Alternating between island and wave;

Fearful, without an anchor, trying to

Read a map through blurred vision.