silly last poetry cafe justwrite

Enough of this, and these, and those, too. What I really need is a pouch full of seeds because all I've been planting are my feet which only grow into footprints while my palms are aching for pansies and there are diamonds in the sky that I used to think were stars before they weren't, and my wishes weren't either, weren't etched on the backs of pennies or used to blow out birthday candles. Evenings are my favorite time for thinking, but they're usually gone before I start, Scrabble letters stacked on the floor and the foot of my bed, sheetless and cold because it's summer now, when you press your face against tile because you can, the air too hot and wet to breathe, but August is over just before you've drowned so the worst is piled around you, saying, "I'm the worst," and making all sorts of scary faces, like the one I see just before I go to sleep then is gone before I wake up, like everything heavy from the day slips out of my eyelids while they're closed and hikes skulkingly into the woods, staring at the ground because there are feathers sometimes or arrowheads or rocks that you think might be arrowheads because they're sharp enough that it was probably on purpose, and then Karam is here! and bird noise sounds like songs, and I remember warm blueberries and green gauge plums from when I was younger, brown betty as the sun set, sand still in our pockets from last week. There are six moons in the sky, and four of them have noticed me, nodding like they'd be tipping their hats if they had them, my fingers chasing shadows on the picnic table, a lightning bug searching our living room, and empty bowls upside down, drying on the kitchen counter.

what I learned in high school

When there are turtles in the road, pull over and carry them to the other side, but if they're snapping turtles, use sticks to nudge them back to where they started. Remember that rain is for dancing, with bare feet as the sky's opening above you. Carry tissues, or hugs at least, for crying hallway strangers. Never grow too big for swings or so small that playing hide and seek with you is way too challenging for your friends. When it comes to pineapples, don't hide them, or at least don't ask the administration where they are. And always make sure someone signs up to bring drinks. Collecting poetry is only productive if you use it to finish your original plan, but writing poetry is always productive. Use it as an excuse for not cleaning your room, and for inexpensive but meaningful birthday presents. Be proud of the dent pencils form on your finger, and say, "I'm a writer," not like it's your job, but like it's your identity.

last creative writing club distracted justwrite

Feeling blue around the edges, not as rough as yesterday when long weekends melted into long summers over a hundred empty pages, and I fed plants with the light behind my eyes, hunched over them until the storms came and I remembered that every time dancing in hail is like the first time, the ceiling opening up and people like reflections of themselves, pretending I don't know them until the time is up and I'm thrust into a traffic jam on my bicycle, but my legs are too long so my knees hit the handlebars every time I pedal, my head without a helmet and the crosswalks invisible so I don't know when to stop until my wheels fall off and the road caves in, and you're waving from the other side of a great canyon so I can't quite see your face. We jump together. Our shoelaces are untied and have been their whole lives, not like the newly unknotted with white spots like fingernails, yours like seashells, the underside that sand hasn't yet worn away, the callouses on my hands feeling smoother when I'm under water learning how to breathe again every time I surface. You have a camera with the lens permanently unfocused; I remember pictures of words that look like lightning, of rooms that are really nothing unless your nose is pressed against the page, since when you breathe all of something in, it's less focused and more clear, like one day ahead of you and knowing exactly what you'll do except the details because when your spontaneity is planned you don't believe it, like how fairies only seem real when you weren't looking, too many questions about light tripping over your eyes or trapped behind them, trying to decide if your tears are green or blue.

handy justwrite

Get your hands from the handy-man as he pedals his bicycle down Maple Avenue, avoiding pot holes as if they're bottomless, puddles as if they're oceans. I have a map in my pocket, the world folded in on itself and tucked down deep where I can't see it, and a compass in the back of my mini-van which I left three blocks away, where the parking is free after seven and teenagers stand around at midnight feigning adulthood with cheap tomato and basil sandwiches, pretending the air is more clear at night because all the cars are parked, headlights dimly reflecting streetlamp light like they're about to fall asleep, wind blowing plastic bags sounds suddenly like leaves, dry, thirsty as a July afternoon, unexpected hiking, his palm slipping across mine as I led him up the hill and pretended either of us believed he was leading me. There were no clouds that day, not in our sky, where the blue spread so far we would have drowned in it if the branches weren't there for us to hold like ropes sinking in the tides, growing green with age while toddlers trip on the edge of the carpet, cheerios spilled across linoleum, constellations without names, waiting for us to claim them. I find a broom instead because I can't remember what the doorknob looked like when I couldn't reach it, my feet arching upward, barely touching the ground.

not quite alone justwrite

Get anywhere except the front of the bus because the road thinks too smoothly there, more waterfall than asphalt, expecting steam to rise from the bottoms of your feet but sinking instead so you think you're drowning until you realize your knees are dry and you'd be breathing if you wanted to be, you'd be breath like fog on a January day, warm and wet and feeling too light to find the ground and too heavy to find yourself, pretending that all things with strings are kites so you can fly above the highway with your shoes on tight enough on a windy day, your fingers catching on the edges of rooftops and catching sunlight as if you could, as if everything you see is real and you can tear off shadows, fold them into cranes or just in half so they'll fit in your pocket, and you're not surprised when it's empty later, at least not as surprised you were the first time you had your palm read and learned that everything would turn out well, full of laugh lines and songs on acoustic guitars with words that aren't for strangers. You kept asking more and yet more empty faces until you found the bad news, etched it into your skin so deep it's permanent unless you learn to see through yourself, but even then the rain catches in the crevices and reflects the words in sunlight or moonlight or lamplight, so you turn to mist and pretend you're not searching for the ground, for yourself, for how long it takes to find the front of the bus and get anywhere.

living in the moment justwrite

Know the habits of footprints to disappear except when they are on the surface of the moon, sand so fine it is dust resting eternally in swirls from windstorms that dissolved into the universe so long ago we're not sure how it happened, which isn't much different from two years ago when apathetic glances were harsh and the grass was dry, sharp edges crackling against the bottoms of my feet, and being barefoot wasn't tasting soil but tasting blood, like bees darting in from the sky and out again before you learned what it is to be a bee, what it is to dance instead of talk and spend your whole life with flowers and honey, the weight of the fear when a their is nearby that nothing will be exactly like this moment, not even the memory of this moment, so I look into mirrors that are not mirrors at reflections that reflect everything that isn't my skin and wait for the time when waiting will stop before I realize the silence of the voices in this room is solid enough to stand on, soft enough to sleep in, and I stop to rest my tired feet until I grow my wings.