2-person cwc justwrite

Cheerful band-aids reminding my skin that it would rather not feel anything, a banana in one hand and your earrings in the other, winking like oysters that hide beneath me, filtering the salt from my tears. On the evenings when it snows, I can never find my footprints, regret setting them free from boxes and melting all of my keys down to molten metal, memorizing shapes and tracing them over and over again on the ice. Sometimes I melt, disappearing because I'm so transparent you convinced me I'm no longer here, telling you that black and white are the same color, see the laughter catching up to your eyes before the light does, waves breaking in the air because this argument is so convincing I accept it like a fistful of flowers, wet grass hanging on their lips, and I feel like I've been torn from my roots and am falling away from the Earth, eyes closed, sky rushing by, hanging paper snowflakes from my fingertips and watching them melt before I can tie the strings, coming unravelled at the edges like a voice behind a wall leaking from itself before it can reach you. My life is new because I am young and in a place I've never been before. I can leave my mind behind me and find another two streets down, recycle myself until I'm back to where I started, see the ice crystals fading from my skin, and realize what I've learned.

post anti-fail multiple choice write

There are spiderwebs on the books in this room, fingerprints lacing the walls in this room, fingerprints like holes; you can see through them, moments cut off around the edges, a cloud whose shape changes before you can name it. You see words that feel familiar but disappear like steam, leaving your skin sticky with moisture that is almost dry, warm but apprehensive because there is wind in this room, sneaking through the cracks in the floor in this room as you watch the ceiling, waiting for the weather.

cheer preview just for you

ahem...

Two, four, six, eight,
Seniors, Seniors, they're so great!
Thirty-seven, seventy-four,
Did you see the seniors score?
Eleven, fifteen, sixty-three,
They're gonna win; it's meant to be!

*insert many pompoms, smiles, and other cheertastic things*

a bit salty justwrite

A skipping stone, like the ripples where I used to keep my reflection, without air but not drowning because the wind is moving too quickly to be caught and the holes in my net are too big, minnows dancing between my fingers and laughing when I catch only sand that I use to make ropes for hanging mobiles from the stars and pretending they've been there all along. I've been here, my feet sinking deeper into the Earth. When I reach for the daffodils growing nearby, they nod at my fingertips and turn the other way, catch sunlight and pour it out again because what else is there to do all day if you're a daffodil. I see you through the open window, dusting with a cloth that used to be an apron for a doll. I remember the rain came so fast we couldn't save her, had to watch through the doorway as the yard turned to mud around her face, and you clutched at my hand the next morning, dragging me through the fog like I'd be lost forever if I didn't come along. We found her then, and her hair is still brown like it was that night in the shadows, like the ones that are tied around my waist now, heavy, and the top of my head is barely visible if you're on the other side of the hill, picking daffodils like there will be more tomorrow, letting the bluebirds dart by your shoulders with their fists full of sand, my reflection fading into air.

new justwrite

The tears in your eyes are ribbons that chase my wrists across the room and whisper that nothing's all right but they understand, came from the same box as mine and the rain before it was poured into the rivers, found my bare feet on a lemonade afternoon and reminded me that we're connected, threads in a rope in the rug on the floor of a dusty old room where the color used to live, creased now like the skin on the backs of your hands, road maps with the footprints drawn on in permanent ink, thinking my mind is a forest so you can have shade to sit in while you write poetry about fire and the scar on your left ring finger from making soap with your grandmother. It was decades ago, but you can still feel the pain if you concentrate, remember the surprise as your skin brushed the burner so I can feel it when your fingertips brush my chest, see it in your hair as you walk away, searching for sunlight like it's a secret you never told anyone, but we can see it anyway, branded into your pupils, still red coals so your fear turns to steam when you cry and the winter is melted when I stand close enough, our feet gazing at each other through the snow, and I think of puddles when they become lakes and how long until they're gone, craters left behind big enough to hold my voice on most mornings, teapot whistling, out of tune, on the stove and my hairbrush useless in my palm. Mornings feel like photographs when the light finds its way between the curtains and you shower with the door open so the water raining down blends into silence, a song that has no words and doesn't change until I really listen, more than I ever have before, and I see the drops staining your cheeks, magnifying the words under your skin. I search for a mirror, the surface of a lake with no tides, the curve of a metal teapot, wondering what you see.

tired justwrite

Curled edges, starting at the middle of scrolls that turn to dust when you touch them because they've been in the sea for a thousand years, the library pillars hiding in a seaweed forest like buttons that are so small I lose them in my carpet, have to crawl on the floor to find them, and realize how long it's been since I've been shorter than my bed, wondering what's on top of the dresser and imagining things more exciting than a college rejection letter and sixty-seven sticky notes coated in reminders I've already forgotten. I lose myself in an ocean of paper, and then I lose that ocean because there are rocks outside big enough to stand on, white as bones in the shadow-specked sunlight, like something being built into something else without taking away the extra parts, frayed yarn, ends woven in, hidden, knowing your time is up when really only half the world has already dissolved, and the outer half is what's left so it doesn't affect you anyway. You think about outer space and try to imagine something with no end, not realizing you'll never see the edges of yourself, not like everyone else can. In a few days, they'll be too busy staring at their feet to notice much of anything but the sand eroding from the surface and their skin growing darker as shadows finally find their way out. The waves in the distance are silent, petrified by their own power, frozen at their bases and boiling at their crests so you can't touch them without feeling everything at once, the paper piling around you, the notes you've forgotten, all curling at the edges, trying desperately to hide what's inside.

club day justwrite abstraction

Abstract elsewhere, unfolding maps in the back of the car and folding them again on the islands between highways, no time to dig for treasure because there are at least seven wildflowers to be picked, an empty cup on my dashboard just waiting for some stems. I build an earthen dwelling and watch the weather come in, waiting for the rain as if it is a sure thing, remembering how it all started with a puff of smoke and a twig I called magic, waving it above your head and knowing when the fog came we would be invisible, assuming we stayed fifteen yards or more away from things with eyes. The grass is less cold than I remember, melts the ice in my veins to water itself, drinks deeply and recalls what it couldn't face before, the strength of the moon in July and how long it takes to count the stars, having to start over and over again because they keep suffocating, sending so much light in every direction that it's gone so soon, the way stuffing runs out before potatoes on Christmas and toddlers are instantly teenagers unless you stare so close you can't see the creases form on their skin, the wonder behind their eyes replaced with pain replaced with wonder again, like realizing you'll never know how much you don't know but knowing that is enough. The lines on the maps are blurry now, but the lines on my palms are as clear as ever.

National Poetry Month April 1st poem

The pages cling to each other,
metal teeth
tearing manuscripts in straight
lines while the poets rest
in the corner, finger painting
on each other's faces, eyes
drawn in henna on
the palms of their hands.
The ceiling melts

into sky, a woman
with clouds in her veins plucking
secrets from the stars,
threading them to hang
in every window, moths
thinking all light is the sun,
fluttering, clogging
the night air like ash, grasping
with many weak arms as torn paper
covers the floor.