that's mrs. mediocrity to you

so what
if the world
moves on
without you

are you
so certain
there’s a
better place
to begin?

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i have hands that need to be worried
knitted brows and empty eyed needles
clicking and clacking in time
with a grandmother’s song

she told me all her stories once
from a field of corn and desperation

broken backs and clattered crows
stealing all the shiny bits

i made a choker of her words
red silk knots and sour drops
on the tongue of overdrawn wisdom

she knew everything about me
before i was born

and nothing of the taste
of redemption

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

you can hear the world sleeping

it makes its own sound
bears its own cross
fills its own void

a spiderweb of dream
and nightmare

edged with dewdrop and laughter

spoken words float out
across the horizon of yesterday

tomorrow
someone just waking up
will hear them today

your whisper
is the scream
that stops the hand
that wields the knife

your off key whistle
is the icy finger
beneath the crack
of winter’s window

your declaration of love
is the robin singing penance
for curing dawn
of all color

lie still
in the mirror dark quiet

wait

it’s impossible to breathe
without inhaling
someone else’s

exhale

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

today i don’t want
to be greedy about anything.

forget greedy,
i don’t even want to want what i want

i want to stand here on bare earth
naked and white

beneath this sky of broken promises

listen to the thunder

i want to be cracked open
by an errant bolt of lightning

lit, for one brief moment
from the inside out

fed by a harvest of sunshine
and scolded by the red words
of dusk

i want to be hollowed out and left

opened and forgotten

today i don’t want
to be greedy about anything.

i want to breathe fire into blue surrender

hold everything still and empty

wait for hope to fill me up

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i’ve been holding back tears for weeks
playing strong and grown up and
capable
(a word that always hunts me down)

last night the world broke me
(again)

the floodgates opened
and i stood in the rain so no one
would notice

tears fell to earth
ran down rivers
rushed to the ocean

(earth’s gravity bowl
for mother’s tears)

i want to gather my babies
and build a big bonfire

cook them promises and
protection bake them dozens
of hope-filled tomorrows

i want to sit beneath the stars
and see their eyes fill
with something other than
confusion

i want ghost stories and
huddled together whispers
about fears they need not be
afraid of

i want this storm
to cry itself out
cleanse our wounds
carry us all out to see

i am hungry for a rainbow

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

Also linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

and i write poems in my mind as you
breathe not so silently beside me
in a darkness whole
and beautiful except
we choose to crack it with
electricity and fairy promises
and silence isn’t the same as black
and goodness isn’t the same as light and
you know all these things with the peace
of good sleep and i lay here awake
words swinging through my
mind in a bellicose beacon
and you would think
protection
but i am drawn to those shores
and these rocks will break me

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i want to pull an alice and dive into a mirror
surely life looks different from the other side

backwards and cockeyed and filtered through
lint left on the surface or smudges stamped
by florid fingerprints and the brittle bones
of everyone who’s ever touched you

always lit like a window in an opulent dream
this place where everyone wears dresses
and no one ever thinks to ask your name
loneliness is a hamper and heartache
is eternally for breakfast, served over easy

with tea, of course

i want to talk to prepubescent butterflies
smoking peace and posturing philosophy
aces and spades kings and queens grinning cats
roses that bloom and bleed and bloom again
always late all this hate always late

shadows are made from silence turned sideways
and music is the way your mouth moves
time is a harness on the horse of hardship
dragging hard on the carriage of comfort

and i am the queen who wants to be whole
but no one hears me in here, knocking

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

everything that was broken yesterday
remains that way today

i have fixed what i can and the rest
is the life i have chosen

or sunk into
shoulder high

and i’ve yet to flail my hands

i am still
and silent

i was listening for something
for the longest time

and then i forgot how to speak

this isn’t mud i wallow in
but rather
the exquisite change pain of life

i no longer wait to be rescued

there are stars
or rain on my face

clouds
or blinding blue skies

crows chatter on the line
i used to talk through

there is a bluebird just now
warbling a love song

there is earth pressed tight
against my heart

winter ate me whole
and spring will spit me back out

this clay will all turn to dust
and my feet are already

bare

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i am awash in a sea of pretty pictures
and no one can save me from myself

so i built this tiny boat
from matchsticks and ribbon
with seven layers and five sunsets
and three extra blankets

i don’t collect things anymore
especially dust

and there can’t be two of anything
because i only like odd numbers

but i see everything there is to see
floating in these waves, every color
interspersed with black and white,
all leading to a shore I cannot reach

at least not without stopping
1,457 times to say

how beautiful

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

this room is empty save
for that ball of string
standing in one corner
looming tall and multi-colored
all knotty and criss-crossed
with dust and ever afters and
red might be for love but blue
is for everything else
and from a distance
it all blurs into beige
just the way I see your face
when i squint
in the sunshine

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.