my entries for the Construct Cup |
It's that time again. Time when I lose all sense of proportion and sanity and agree to write a poem a day following prompts exactly as given by our fearless leaders (aka Ren the Klutz! and fyn . I may not survive. But I will do it anyway, mostly because I can't imagine anyone having this much agony fun without me. Come join us! We have cookies. And possibly, straitjackets.
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I dream of you, though we’ve never met— the beat of your heart, the shape of your walk, the taste of your breath, the touch of forever when we take hands. I look for you in every face I pass, wondering who you are. I’ve never looked for beauty—that’s too easily found, too easily lost. I look for you in smiles— in the laughter of friends, in the value you’ll show for my mind, my heart, my choices. I plan for you with what I’ve made of me— learning, growing, becoming, more with every day. I won’t be perfect, but I want to match you, strength for strength, hand for hand, dream for dream— I dream of you. do you dream of me? Prompt: 11 May ▼ |
without a mirror try to imagine the face you’ll see tomorrow, the new lines, the browns shading into grey, the scars etched that you will gain unnoticed, in careless places. try to imagine the kinds of sacrifice that will place those lines where they will be so visible, the cliffs you will climb, the mountains you will trudge, the thermals you will catch to carry you high or drop you low. a lifetime is too short to become the you you think you are. it is just long enough to do, to be, to grow into-- yourself. Prompt for: May 10, 2016 ▼ |
minute increments of duration whisper past us, one, two, ten, never ceasing marching from infinite to infinite— starting, stopping, stepping, dancing. there is no order to their dance, no way to calculate the measure between one instant and the next. we try to count them, catch their rhythm, first, second, twenty-seventh, but our hearts are too loud, and we live too hard to watch them pass— let us dance. let the moments care for themselves. Prompt: 9 May ▼ |
Dad butchered the crepe myrtle, cut it back until it was nothing more than two thin sticks sprouted from a common root. it was time, he said, too many branches overburdening the top means not enough flowers reaching out to touch the sky. we laughed that winter, as we passed the tiny stumps in the middle of the lawn in a bed of daffodils. we laughed because Dad was overzealous, a certified killer, too quick with the pruning shears—too ready to chop gratuitously. until spring came, and buds formed, and leaves and branches came thick and fast as though the tree had been waiting for someone to give it a new path. and the flowers. we had never seen such flowers as erupted, pink and vibrant on that butchered tree. Prompt for: May 8, 2016 ▼ |
I walked with her that night, hoping to avoid induction. her first baby, my first niece or nephew two weeks overdue. down hospital corridors and back again, we paced and talked and speculated about just who would come, tomorrow—and she shared her worry. what kind of mother would she be? tomorrow came, my niece with it, I stayed with them, keeping watch over baby sneezes while her mother slept. nine years. three sons later, (one dead too quickly), I marvel at her strength. even losing her eye didn’t turn her bitter. that loss was nothing when she thought of her lost boy. music was always her gift— she played piano at four, and worked pit with her xylophone in marching band. now she shares that gift with her children. they study together, mother and children, every morning, singing with childlike zeal of history and geography biology and physics— even her youngest reciting facts that she defines as they learn to ask— to understand. I’ve seen her lose patience, but remain calm— so very unlike my little sister when we were young— talking them down, pulling them short, picking her battles. her home isn’t tidy, but is full of music and laughing. and it is strange to think that my little sister has changed so that I think of her as mother, first. a mother I would be proud to be. line count: 55 Prompt: 7 May ▼ Alphabetical Word List ▼ |
it’s difficult to tame a saguaro. their lives are protected by reams of red tape, and are not easily transplanted. so my garden has none. and no cholla—jumping cactus best exist at a distance as vast cholla fields are burned to save the cattle. they are too big for me. my garden is a tiny bowl populated by Christmas cacti that bloom in the winter—reds and pinks and golds waving me near enough to try their spines. one green bud is so covered with needles, so tiny, so thick, they look like they’re soft enough to pet, but when I do, my fingers pay the price. I keep it, tucked away in a corner, a slice of home. Prompt for: May 6, 2016 ▼ |
it is morning and she’s heading for the door, my door, my she, and I twine around the legs of my she to remind her— it’s time for my food in my little dish in my corner, not the icky dry food my she sometimes buys that I refuse to eat because I deserve better, but my soft food that comes from cans. I wish my she would learn to open more quickly. and then she leaves because it is my time. I check every room for my toys, but my she accidently left the door to my toilet closed, and the white sheets that shred so nicely are locked away. and the bin has nothing good smelling— only white plastic. I check, because sometimes she hides good things to eat there for me to find. I stalk my perimeter, making sure every window is looking out on my bushy prey and my scampering prey and my flying prey— my she feeds them so they linger and I watch them and plan their deaths. I climb the curtain that my she calls lace, which has little holes perfect for my claws, and curl on my window sill to bask in my sun. I like the warm. when she comes home I am not happy because she is mine and she is changing clothes as though it is time to leave when it is my time. I think my she is going to see him. I do not give my permission for my she to let him into my home. he is rough and smells of canine and is not worthy of my she. I scratched the leg of him. the blood of him tasted sweet when I cleaned my claws. Prompt for: May 5, 2016 ERE ▼ |
we are braided together— like strands of yarn so different in texture and color that it’s impossible to imagine how alike we are— silk and wool intertwined with linen and bamboo, and the unexpected fibers— nylon, rayon, glittered plastic that lend us shine. we balance each other— each one who joins us becomes inevitable. necessary for the whole, reaching back and forward into eternity. I cannot imagine life without each of you. your aromas fill my lungs, your musics beat in my veins, I ache with you. even when our lives move us apart, so far apart, I’m stronger because of you your fierce support sustains me. there is no separation. no way to define me, anymore not without you— all of you. and when the inevitability of death touches one of us, we mourn our loss, but the strands our dead gave have changed us, deepened us, forever. Prompt for: May 4, 2016 ▼ |
it never fails— there I am, typing away my head stuck within a fictional mind, my dragon soaring so fast and high that I’m not sure I can sustain the pace, and it’s smooth. the sounds of the house are hidden behind earplugs that pour a classical soundtrack on a loop—Vivaldi to Wagner, Saint Saens to Ravel— wordless thunder crashes and eldritch screams and discordances that make my pulse sing and my thoughts race into story. I haven’t eaten in hours, but I don’t feel the lack because the flow is magic . . . and then, the phone rings. I barely hear it—I try to ignore it— but it could be family so I strip away the headphones and untangle my laptop from my arm, and stand, heading to answer— only to hear a recorded voice pretending to be a human ask me if I needed a wireless security system— which we don’t. we have one already, and I hang up without thanking or saying goodbye, but when I flop back down on the couch and pull my laptop back, my dragon has gone and I’m left in the middle of a song, in the middle of the story, lost. Prompt for: May 3, 2016 ▼ |
Memphis means seeds wafting over the landscape in clouds of tree fluff— as though we dwell in a shaken globe, the shape within the glass covered in a perpetual drift while a music box whistles of flowers that bloom in May. I see it, try to catch a white fuzz shape between my outstretched fingers, but I am too slow. the wind of my passing stirs and it circles aloft again to find some bit of fertile ground—some place where the tiny bit of genetic material can turn into something grand. fantastic. who would imagine a tree could be contained on a breath of wind. line count: 24 Prompt for: May 2, 2016 ▼ |
night is a dance— attack and retreat, twirl and twist, an endless negotiation between my spinning mind and my desire for sleep— there is no rest as problems circle into a nightmare of waking. the first measure starts as footsteps climb the stairs, their familiar rhythm a signal that night has begun. silence. I feel my heart pulse in my fingers, in my neck, in my feet that twitch. the beat is held by blood and clockwork ticking past midnight. I dance the rituals that signal that it’s past time. the lights can go out. I put down my book, tuck away my yarn, shake pills into my hand, taste my blood— copper bright, brush my teeth— cinnamon mint, dress, tuck myself away into the soft cloud of my feather bed. I close my eyes, and the melody bursts inside my eyelids in ripples of red and blue, gold and green, swirling together and apart. five minutes, ten. the light blooms again, an expression of my surrender to wakefulness. and so I take my book again, my eyes burning as I lose myself within the pages until the smell of ink soothes me, until dawn spills her light onto my bed, and sleep finally carries me away. Prompt for: May 1, 2016 ▼ |
my living room is invaded. Uncle Seymore’s desk, looming like a mausoleum imposing, cold, home to all the family skeletons except his own. when it first came to me, I asked Mama who Seymore Z. FitzSimmons was, and what the Z was for, and whether we really needed a desk that weighed more than couch, television, and piano combined, but she just shook her head as she stared. he’d sit there, she told me, with spectacles perched at the tip of his nose, ready to be pushed up when my cousins and I dared enter. then he would look down, staring at us until we felt we must tell him . . . all. she circled it as she talked, keeping what distance she could as though it were explosive. one day he caught me, she said, I’d almost forgotten. his fingers were ink stained and long, and they gripped my shoulder like a vulture’s talons, and he showed the desk to me. she approached it then, like a kitten approaching a sleeping snake, curious but skittish. I wonder if I remember . . . and then she reached out and pressed the top of the lectern while twisting one drawer handle the wrong way, and like a giant puzzle box, the desk opened and at its heart, reams of paper stained with a clear hand. the skeletons unveiled, she left me, and I gathered the pages, reading stories of half forgotten names and half familiar deeds recorded by the one who knew all the stories. I’ve read them through, and noticed the absence that glares at me—no tales belong to Seymore Z. FitzSimmons. he shared everyone’s stories, but never even told me the meaning of his Z. line count: 54 Prompt for: April 30, 2016 ▼ |
I wonder sometimes, in the murky calm of sleep, who I will be when I’m finished. I aspire to be great— to write the visions in my head, to share those stories with people everywhere who will read and laugh and cry and fall in love, just a little bit— I aspire to love— the complicated kind that involves completion and laughter and fighting and children and a home where we can grow old together— I aspire to live to see a day when sugar means something good, again, and I only see accidental blood. but I live under a mortal sun, and my wishing will never make someone find a cure or fall in love with me or read what I write. my life is a constant challenge, shaping myself with careful strokes so that when a wish comes true, I will be ready to leap. Prompt for: April 29, 2016 ▼ |
I thought my fate was you, but you were gone. church bells tolled your death knell, and I was left hollow by your absence to wander through forgotten alleys and rain darkened streets, until, lost at some forgotten shop, unseen and overlooked, I entered, uncaring what I might find. my life was dust. I passed trunks and jewels, tapestries, and one unadorned ring, skeletal hands beating heart rhythms, books whose pages whispered secrets, swords and staves— and nothing spoke to me until I saw your mirrored shadow dancing, and I stopped. that mirror is old, whispered three voices in unified discord. beware, for he catches those who gaze too long singing empty promises. he seeks someone to share his fate. I turned, but three women were winking their one eye and turning away— and I forgot their warning because in that mirror I almost saw you. I reached to your image touched hands through glass, stepped through— but you vanished and I was trapped. my sorrow feeds him, he will not let me go, and I dwindle, forgetting you forgetting me inside this ornate gilt frame. Prompt for: April 28, 2016 ▼ |
love starts so small a kernel hovering between us linked by our outstretched hearts, our heated eyes, ready to germinate— if I take your hand we will breathe it into life. I hesitate, wondering if its future shape is worth taking a step into the dark. our lives might come together and bloom into a fractal universe—a simple shape more intricate as it is examined. all beginnings are fraught with possibility— I could explore infinity with you. you reach out and promise to listen and to laugh to taste our tears with me to trace our happiness over and over until it’s etched between us to tend our love with me until it becomes everything we can be. I reach to take your hand and we fall. Prompt for: April 27, 2016 ▼ |
I’m a wordsmith by trade, but when I saw her in the NICU standing over Caleb, her finger stroking his little hand singing the same songs she’d shared with him when he was still within her— when he was still whole— my craft deserted me. there are no words to say anything to a new mother as she loses her child by inches. I tried them in my head. reassuring, faith filled, mourning, simple, hopeful, complicated words, filled my head with noise until I was drowning in possibilities— all inadequate. instead, I held her hand, watched with her in silence, turned my head and closed my eyes when she begged me not to look at her. they all stare at me, she said, and I knew why they stared because I felt myself doing it— watching her to see where she needed me, hoping for a clue, a hint of which word she needed. but their looks—our looks— made her feel naked raw. brain dead. simple words made the next steps necessary. and impossible. she held him in her arms for the first time, for the last time, and sang a wordless song to him to guard his way. Prompt for: April 26, 2016 ▼ |
when thinking of just who I am, my every inclination I swear the most annoying one is this: procrastination. you see, the things I’m supposed to do like working on my thesis loom in my head so large and strong that I go right to pieces, and instead of doing what I should I’m trapped online instead and silly games on Kongregate are mobile my head. and when the dishes are undone the food upon them stewing, I sit and read a book—watch me, I am instead of doing. my room’s a mess with empty shelves and books stacked on the floor— while look at me, my Netflix’s on I knit and watch some more. but never fear, I have a plan, I’ll write. I’ll clean this heap— it’s half past midnight, time for chores— I’ll just instead of sleep. line count: 24 Prompt for: April 24, 2016 ▼ |
they took the rest of you away from me, buried it deep and thought I had lost. they were wrong. the memory of you surrounds me a constant wisp of color at the edge of sight, a subtle tune that pulls at my ears until I can’t move without you. the echo of you wakes me, the constant beeping of the monitors has filled our home for so long that I hear it still and rise to search you out, but true glimpses escape me. I haven’t touched our bed. for too long it was your prison and I, the warden of your comfort and health regulated myself to catnaps and a sterilized mask. I feel naked without it now, as I sit and watch your empty bed. as soon as I turn away, I feel you there. at night, when I close my eyes, the essence of you lingers near and I see you, bending to kiss my forehead as I have kissed yours. I can feel the pressure of your lips smell a hint of your perfume, wafting down the hall. please, come a little closer. let me touch you once again. line count: 48 Prompt for: April 24, 2016 ▼ |
do you remember? that night. the fight outside, the world hurled rain. trees bowed down, and shutters crashed, but within the wind blew hot and strong, with long hard words catapulting abuse. no bruises or bloodshed stained our bed. no, the hurt was soul deep, subtle. do you remember? because we loved, weaknesses once learned—earned with trust now spat in combat. I hurt you and you hurt me with truths we swore never to use. do you remember? afterward, unheard words caught beneath my teeth. I watched the sky crack. alone. home shattered— do you remember? can you help me find the pieces and fit us together again? line count: 25 Prompt for: April 23, 2016 ▼ |
that a friendly instincts instead of shyness had prevailed on that plane with a child kicking in the seat behind. A smile could have made that mother’s journey much sweeter. that instead of lingering for endless days of waiting, clinging to something that never could live, it could have died cleanly. Two lives become increasingly difficult to unmesh with time. that a single word, carelessly spoke, had failed to emerge and a friendship remain untainted. Respect is so simple a word that can be heard so differently. that there could have been one more hour to spend in the NICU, listening to the flutter of heartbeat, breathing together before letting the baby go. One more minute. One more instant. Five days was eternally too short. Prompt for: April 22, 2016 ▼ |