Category: Poetry

I always remember to stretch in the morning.
In a therapy session, I was once asked
why I looked so uncomfortable.
I replied that it was because I was in a therapy session.
The therapist told me to relax,
and for the first time in my life
I was prompted to stretch.
“Never be too afraid of formality
to give yourself the right to be comfortable,” he continued.
On that day
and in that moment
I first explored exploring myself.
Once I felt my comfort was valid,
I could no longer accept not adjusting in my situation.
Once I twisted my back in relief,
contorting my perspective to new angles became my default.
Once my arms stretched into infinity,
how could I cease to fill the expanding universe
with my expanding self?

Conversations hung in the air
suspended on rising warmth
from an active street
Billowing syllables soup into a moist ether
A spark of light cuts the chamber mist
as Isabel thumb-flicked her jacket’s button
As the garment glid from her shoulders
She felt immediately cooled
Only to be cloaked again with
surrounding voices
Satin red interior hidden by dark blue outer fabric
folded over her arm
Stately well read interior narrative replacing it
from the dark, blue, and droll faces they escape from

My love is a confection mixed with bitter herbs
Tubes of sour lemon icing, disguised in pink and blue
Milk white filling leaks from parted lips again
Half baked emotions don’t contain the recipe flavors
Glowing bright, my oven sits with vacant racks
The timer hasn’t yet called my attention
Yet unjust desserts are served to Gordon, Judy, and the rest
While the iced tops make it look appetizing
Cold, sour, and bitter argon colored undone tarts

Response to a GIF prompt from Victoria

via GIPHY

Blinded by your feelings
You may paint me a villain
Once I was your prince
But now Machiavellian
Caught with my hands stained in vermillion
My brilliance really is diminished by this silliness.
Didn’t you once tell me I was one in a million?
Now I’m just like the rest of them
Living as a testament that the best of men
Can be put to rest and sent to death and end.
Hold your breath and when you breathe again
Will you still be seething then?
Or will you lean to reasoning easily?
We were scarred by that evening
Leaving deepening wounds
Grieving like we’re keeping the memory
Of those sleeping in tombs
I may be leaping in soon
To follow under my buried reputation in your eyes
And in your heart.
Once I was your prince
But you led a rebellion
Now I’m dwelling in Hell again.

Response to a GIF prompt from Mikaela

via GIPHY

Love the way you love yourself
If you find you don’t
Love yourself differently
Until you do

Love the way you love yourself
If you find you can’t
Learn to treat others
As well as you would want

Love the way you love yourself
If you find you won’t
Accept the way
And you will learn it is you

Response to a GIF prompt by Drew

I throw words at the wall
And see what sticks
And it clings similarly to dry spaghetti
Does that make sense?
If you’re following me, then nod.
I struggle with words
Like I struggle with bowling balls
Once I send them off
They never seem to hit quite right
Language itself is a sport
Where meaning is the ball
Words are the sticks
And someone else’s prior experiences are an invisible goal
I have to guess the location of the goal
The sticks are all different shapes and sizes
The ball is actually a box
My teammates never made practice
There weren’t even tryouts
Noone ever plays home-field
The Jumbotron is actually social tension
The audience wants you to lose
And the referees cost 175 dollars an hour
Does that make sense?
If you’re following me, then nod.
I struggle with words

Response to a GIF prompt from Heather

A day reads as a passage read aloud
That more resembles hallways seen up close
And leads to tiny, cluttered chambers cramped
With verbose mind and punctuation thoughts.

Each moment is a paper thin event,
A single page that captures fractures of
A narrative alive as life itself
Dependent on, yet free of those before.

So often and so easy torn away
From memories, divorced from corridors
That both before and after led the way
And brought this character along this prose.

An existential panic leads to dread
Considering the way that we are thrown
By chapters of the past into a fray
And left here in this paragraph alone.

Response to a GIF prompt by Sparks

Here comes Greg.
Heard his wife left him? Yep. Just over the weekend.
It went over the deep end. Yeah, on Monday,
He went all to shit and called in sick.
It’s a shame, too. Look at him. He won’t find nobody else
He’s got shoddy health, his body dealt him a few blows.
Not like his wife, though.
She left him a Dear John letter and –
Hey, Greg, how about this weather?
What’s good? Did you watch that game? What a comeback, right?
You can’t keep a good winner down. Yep. Catch ya’ later!

Poor Greg.
Hard worker, too. Yeah, not like Jerry.
He’s very…? Lazy’s not the word. Yes, worthless.
No work ethic. Works less than the maintenance guy.
Speaking of, you know he slept with Greg’s wife?

We all come here to earn our bread
But really, it’s a rumor mill instead
Grinding grains of truth into flowery
Half baked stories, assuring
That everyone knows more about you
Than you do about yourself.

Hey, what’s going on with Jane?
She hasn’t been the same lately
Cocaine maybe?
I blame Stacy. Since those two became friends
She’s been insane daily

We air our stink when we shoot the shit
To be a fly on the wall
Would be to hear us swat at your shadow
We’re simply
Shallow,
No secret is safe from sharing
If they are secrets worth hearing
Speaking of…

Remember the Christmas party
And how the boss introduced his daughter
Yeah, well, we kinda got to talking
While the boss was outside smoking
I met with her the week after the party
To help her move a mattress into her new apartment
And let’s just say
We took it for a test drive
Hahaha, wait I got a message from my wife
Cool, picking up parmesan tonight
Okay, anyway best lay of my life
Secret’s safe with you, right?

Or when my back is turned
Will I be the last to learn
That gossip gushes down
All tributaries
You can attribute any collapse
Of social integrity
To whispers in hushed rooms
And negative narratives behind closed doors

Because those who live in glass houses
Should throw no stones
Or better yet, let’s build stone homes
That provide shade that we don’t throw
And we don’t say what we don’t know
And what we do know we don’t share
And if it’s being said, we don’t care
But
If you have anything positive to tell me
Trust, I’m all ears.

Response to a GIF prompt from Angela

Bitch, I am fabulous
You may need to call an ambulance for the awesomeness avalanche.
It would be to your advantage to advance with caution
Because each portion of my power quotient is potent.

Bitch, I am fabulous
In a way that is anomalous, manifest miraculous is actually accurate.
Academic rhetoric couldn’t get it, culture can’t tell of it, my elegance,
Science couldn’t identify the relevant elements.

Bitch, I am fabulous
And if you harbor any animus that is absolutely scandalous.
A damn shame that you simply can’t handle it. Analysts value this fab as valorous.
In other words, it’s not undeserved, I don’t underserve.

Bitch, I am fabulous
To a depth that is fathomless, only understood analogous to energy that
An atom of matter is packing times a constant of C, squared. See here,
I just want this to be clear, my fantastic vantage is three-tiered.

Bitch, I am fabulous
Pythagoras’s abacus couldn’t calculate my accolades. I’m better than A-plus.
I’m at an academic grade that the alphabet betrayed.
I’m infinitely paid the graces of the day.

Bitch, I am fabulous
You may even feel amorous with ravenous avarice. If you had a wish,
You might admit and invite a kiss, so in light of this
The insight is I’m a heartbreaker, you might cry a bit.

Bitch, I am fabulous
Which I state with a garrulous adamance. Not arrogant, I speak with evidence.
Any steady sense is well convinced by my look and charm and eminence.
That my winning friends is always imminent.

Bitch, I am so fabulous
My existence is a catalyst for prayer like the angelus in vigils candle-lit.
Like Helen of Troy or Heaven or Never-never-land who could ever stand to deny?
That I
Am So
Fabulous.