24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Hour 9: Satiated (a nonet – new challenge for me)
The rain falls, a steady thrum, white noise
lulling my mind blank; the earth cries
with relief, thirsting, drinking.
I, too, thirst for cool rain
on heated skin, flush
from summer, love,
finding my
first last
kiss
I search the treeline
For that one opening I know
Will lead to the tiny cottage
You and I built
For the end of the world
I need to sit
And take a break
Before I break
But how strange it is
That I just keep going
Knowing you won’t even be there
It will be empty
And dark
And cold
Unlike the bottle I use
To trap emotions like fireflies
The anger inside built up
Until the bottle burst
And the fire flies
Right from my mouth
Spitting heat and lava
Burning my tongue.
I don’t mean to be so angry
But you left before we could see
The end of the world
And instead become the end
Of my world.
Lava is
Boiling in my spirit under my skin
I am hot to the touch
Fissures burst from me sporadically
Steam rising off of me at all times
I do not know when I will erupt
One more wrong word
One last questioning of my feelings
One new attempt to invalidate
Lava everywhere killing everything in its path
The relief to let it flow freely
The remorse burned away
It is brutalizing on the inside
It destroys anything on the outside
But it crusts over
Slowly
It takes a long time to cool
Now there is ash
Over everything
Lungs pulling deeply
No fresh air
Never-ending threat
Will I die because now I cannot breathe
How long until something new
Grows from this magma
It will
But how long
sweltering summer heat
we sink into midday lethargy
that strange sensation
wanting to move
yet completely unable
puddling into a fleshy porridge
mask our efforts
under the paltry breeze
of folded newspapers
fanning fanning fanning
until the first firefly rises
promising a show
for our front row seats
[Prompt 9: Write a poem using five of ten words provided.]
Tiny lights zoom below
the treeline near the cottage, oh
fireflies flitting to and fro
if I could bottle catch them, wow
release my lethargy, and how
a strange illumination see
on my table captive be
when some porridge I do eat
and I’m sweating from the heat
when electric is storm gone
corners masked in dark alone
my fireflies give me peace within
until I set them free again.
– Sandra Johnson
Food. or fuel?
the heat’s made us both
victims of lethargy
in the porridge thick air.
we creep along the weary treeline
which only partially masks
our cantankerous presence.
so it’s no surprise
when the zooming anger
arrives bright as a bottle of fireflies
it drives us in opposite directions
me towards the strange cottage;
Ryan continuing to town
lured by the urge of petroluem.
we didn’t even make plans
to meet up again.
perhaps now we never will
What a strange work of deception it was
To think that some mask I put on long ago
to hide away my pain
would take me so far from home
Can I ask you, in the lethargic heat of a Virginia summer,
To catch a bottleful of zooming fireflies
And hold them up to the screen
So I can see them dance?
01000010 01100001 01100010 01100001 00100000 01011001 01100001 01100111 01100001
or, Binary Baba Yaga
beyond the silver treeline
to a cottage made of bones
I let a strange bright firefly
show me Baba Yaga’s home
in my bag I had a bottle o’ mead
my eyes peered through a mask
I hoped an answer I would find
if I could only ask
the buggy brought me to her gate
she beckoned me inside
she sat and topped her porridge bowl
with spiders, lightly fried
“What have you come to ask me then,
and rouse me from my seat?
What could you need to know,” she said,
“To make you brave this heat?”
she grinned wide with her snaggled teeth,
to her oven stole a glance.
I thought if I did not leave soon,
I’d surely miss my chance.
“We brought you some fine mead,” I said,
“A question for to ask.
How can we rouse our lethargy
to help us meet our tasks?”
she roared and rocked with her delight
changing her form, she boomed,
“You WILL all do good work, children,
or I’ll find and eat you, all through Zoom!”
When you have an ache in your neck and you know it’s from stress
name it stress.
When you have pulling in your neck so hard that your head won’t bend forward
name it Charles.
When you have an explosion up through to the top of your skull
name it winter.
When you have a throbbing on both sides above your ears and you know, you know,
name it sand.
When you have a shooting pain behind each eyeball and you think you know
name it twilight.
When you have a bloody nose
name it forgiveness.
It’s hard to trust others when I’ve told people about my past
Only for them to turn around and use it against me
They know what broke me
And in turn used it to continue to break me
They’ve seen the tears others caused me flowing down my face
And they had the nerve to hug me
Then laughed at me and told me I was overreacting
When they caused them
They knew what hurt me
And they said they would never do the same
But all they did was mirror the actions
And made things worse
I begged for the pain to stop
And they continued to dig the hold deeper
And the more I tried to climb out
They continued to throw in the dirt
Forgive me if I won’t let you get close to me
When I’ve already had people close shatter me
The ones who I was supposed to be able to rely on
Who left me confused in this world
I had to figure out on my own how to uplift myself
How to smile without feeling embarrassed
And how to love my own soul
Forgive if I don’t believe you when you say you’re different
Because that’s what they all say
Until they get you alone
And show you their true intentions
I know I have my guard up
I have never had anyone make me feel like I can put down my weapon
Nor have they made me feel protected
I always stand ready to take action
Maybe someday I will open up
Maybe someone will provide me with a safe haven
Instead of making me feel caved in
The more people play me, the longer it takes me to recoup
It’s going to take a lot if you want me to trust you
And forgive me for having you jump through so many hoops
But these become the consequences when you have trust issues