In the month of May, author Kaitlin Curtice hosted a poetry challenge on her blog, asking readers to write a poem a day based on a prompt word. Here are some of my favorites that I wrote that month.
May poem day 26: Mistake
That thing I said in front of somebody’s kid
The guy I dated when I was 18
The days I spent doomscrolling
The way I let that person trample my boundaries
The way I told stories to excuse the hurt I survived
The violin I left and had to go back for
The words said in anger
The time I was silent
The time I spoke up
—are these enough excuses to show that I’m human?
—and can I let them go when they insist on running replays?
Each day a new chance to begin,
a new chance to break.
May poem day 27: Eternity
I can’t believe in eternity,
not really,
not when everything seems so temporal.
As a kid I learned of the future heat death of the universe
and I was inconsolable.
I couldn’t square it with the teachings of
Heaven and
Hell
and a God who existed with no beginning or end.
Perhaps eternity is simply this:
existing outside the bubble of time,
floating like a star,
with years lined up before you
like numbers on a slide rule.
May poem day 28: Internal
My inner landscape is a mystery
A blank field with some flowers and puffy clouds
and an unseen underbelly of poisonous roots.
I don’t like to hang out here
and try to unearth what’s beneath the surface
when the house finches are building a nest
when the bunnies are nesting in the neighbor’s yard
when the grackles are strutting and mating
when the dogwoods are in bloom.
Leave me alone
and let me exist outside of my head!
Why must I be a human,
and not an oyster mushroom?
~~~
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