The Hyde Effect (Prompt 12)

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Let’s start from somewhere pleasant, the present is better than the past
Better than the last but I’ll try not to get my hopes up
The unresolved teenager in me wants to throw all of her chips in
Best to leave that decision with the jaded skeptical “adult”
How the hell am I an adult and further more
A caregiver

Somehow pulls it all together
Don’t take composure out of context
The next steps are uncertain
Each new person is a threat
Can’t place bets on another big bad wolf while my house is still unsteady
I don’t know how to bring you here
Or how to tell if I am ready to be blown down again

Personal Space (Prompt 11)

Always felt a bit alien, big eyes like those haunting paintings
Wondering if everyone thinks or learns or processes at the same rate
Or if those few in subdued magic and understated presence
Come from the same place as me, born of the same planet

I recognize them when I meet them, a manic yet contained time bomb
Moody and cheerful, bleeding hearts tearful when it comes to goodbyes
Can we go home, does home exist, is it better than this lie
Try to imagine it, what it could be, so often I do try

Light and calm conversations, vacation on the rings of saturn
A cosmic copy of Palm Springs but with looming mountains packed with trees
And we’d eat fruit from low branches sink our teeth into the flesh
Inside them juicy meat that no animals had to die for

We’d speak kindly and be vulnerable and heal and grow each other
Our own personal planet, not taken for granted, we could finally have a mother
That would listen to our needs and happily feed our slender bodies
No one dying of starvation, no children locked in cages

Stages of our moons would reflect stages of our being
When we are fulfilled and strong, and when security feels fleeting
No need to be redundant when we can say it with our eyes
Do you remember that Nirvana nestled somewhere in the skies

Don’t deny it I won’t lie it sounds like heaven or a dream
To remove myself from everything that doesn’t feel like me
You’d be there to teach me, show me the space I never knew
If mother planet does exist tell her I’m looking for her too

Make Her One of Us (Prompt 10)

When the alicorn is restored and the prince of darkness vanquished
It’s time to wake the innocent, retrieve what has been lost
That swan dive
I want to dive like that
I want to be the savior and the saved
Glitter dusted heart entrusted
To be both
Instead of neither
Undeceived by faerie magic
To know her soul stays pure
If handed the sword I’m not sure
I’d do the same
Corruption shimmers entrancing
Dancing with a shadow
That promises power and dresses me in black
Is my love strong enough to shatter the chain
Or do I remain devoted to passion and hooves

Only Human (Prompt 9)

Tell me were you disappointed
when you finally reached the top
and
was I what you expected
when you peeled the mask off

Was it like chasing a fallen star
to only find a firefly
some
fluttering thing with shredded wings
not enough light to guide you by

I wonder which you think of more
the bottle or the backseat
this
strange exchange of secrets
windows fogged in desert heat

Bypass the synchronicities
you’ve never been one to believe
but
you’ve licked your wounds and paid your dues
and still have yet to leave

 

Use Your Words Like You Used Me (Prompt 8)

Once full paragraphs replaced by cartoon faces
Easy to end a conversation with a heart or a thumbs up
Like your vocabulary has been reduced to one singular motion
There was emotion I held space for
When you needed words I gave you many
Surprising now to receive any
And never deeper than the surface
What’s the purpose of this game and why
Do I feel like I am losing
If you’re not using full sentences
I can only keep guessing
Texting is a sorry substitute for watching the shape your lips made
When they said best friend soulmate maybe wife
I love you – you told me
Yet you’d hold me down as less than
Messages to fill your time
Condescend my bared skin poetry
The loyalty I showed you – I never owed you anything
You can say that we’re still friends but in the end
You send me crumbs to keep me hungry
I’m no stranger to starvation
If there’s expected desperation
You’ll get the same response you give the most
Maybe a shrugging stranger
But probably a ghost

Season of the Endings (Prompt 7)

Subtle as it sweeps in with leaves across wooden floors
Hidden behind faith and a facade of something stable
Comfortability masks the scent as it seeps into your pores
You can’t see it yet but it will come
Nothing in life is unchanging you cannot grip so tightly
Try to preserve the present like a globe to shake whenever you feel bored
Pretend there is no ending but the seasons change
And so do you

Precariously perched on edge waiting for an earthquake
The coldness comes before the breaking
Aching for things to go back the way the were before
Adoration doesn’t fit the decor so you buy new furniture
A bigger bed to fill the empty space
Floor length mirrors to reflect on your resentment
You make this place into a museum
Vacuous and sterile

White Noise (Prompt 6)

Falling backwards submerged I see the glittering
High off of a mouth that doesn’t need to break this
Resonate in weightlessness drift against me solid
Fingertips just barely almost nothing and for once
We can be silence lashes beaded inky
You don’t even have to say it just reach
Right through me right through

Spells cast in sun and saliva still you step back
Take the space to see a whole being
Being seen between the dizzy wine
Divine one bursting ripe fruit dripping syrup
My sticky honey tongue my honey thighs for you
I am a king of dewed flowers bruised hips
Dip me down into constellations taste and worship

A daydream we dream in psychedelic color
I’ve never really dared to want but now
No explanations no alarm clocks blissful nothing
Heated skin how can we fight or doubt
Without the wrapping paranoia I feed myself
Peel off chlorine clothes and stay the night
White noise steady breath beside me

Connected (Prompt 5)

I wish I was a tree, roots intertwining whispered messages. Send me healing when I am weak, speak to me in language of earth reaching down to wet depths. Can you understand me, feel me, hear me, I am not linguistic. I am ancient and I am stable.

I wish I was a tree, to sway and bend, lend my arms as homes to all the winged ones. I want to be a home. Call out through stretches of hidden electricity, murmur simplicity against me and do not let me fall. Hold me up when I am sick and we will stand tall together.

Heather (Prompt 4)

Dear 020298,

I exist, at times just barely, for the careful ways you tear me open.
You always find the truths I’ve left unspoken but I’m not hiding from you, I’m hiding from me.
That last conversation left me raw stripped exposed and god knows I pay the price in private.
You hold the scalpel with precision for each incision, it’s better that you do it, so I don’t have to anymore.

It’s romantic in a way, how you exsanguinate the places that are begging to feel
and on the days I don’t feel real, you shove me back into my body.
Call me impulsive, inconsistent, as long as you keep calling I’ll keep crawling toward a future.
You say that I’m a pendulum, swinging between control and having none,
not wanting to be seen but always feeling far away.

Tell me about choices, remind me how to pronounce “no”.
You say you have to go, but I’m still sitting here an open wound.
It’s been four months, six numbers, and one space where I can bleed.

 

Let Me Explain (open letter to “the jitters”) (Prompt 3)

It started with a howling clock – a coyote or a wolf
Hair prickling feral screams in disoriented darkness
Nowhere I can identify not even the when
And then there was the wailing of cats outside a window
Human wailing didn’t sound like mine but my mouth
Was open pupils dilated I’m not here

Let me explain; I never want to sleep

In hospital gown sneaking from dim room
No surprise sighs of exasperation
Give more medication just knock her out
Benadryl Ambien NyQuil or Valium
Runs down the halls and slides in slippers
Sounds cuter when they call it “the jitters”
More like inky terror heavy on my chest
Dragging down to the hell that’s hidden at the bottom of the bed

Let me explain; I never want to sleep

I let my lovers take my body but never
The remote control I need to control sound and light
Need them to fight back the shadows
Don’t ask me what time I shut my eyes
If I stayed up until sunrise do you really think
Curtains open or melatonin have ever brought me peace

Let me explain; I never want to sleep