Tell me about your hands,

faded scars that look like stars,

from haunting, distant lands,

with broken getaway cars.

You whisper as tears flow,

about haunted dreams and bursting seams

with nowhere left to go,

but back to your decaying regimes.

Even amid your silence,

are tolling bells and muted yells,

a heart that screams of violence

locked inside cast-iron cells.

so I fell in love with you,

your lightning strikes and daunting spikes,

and I know it must be true;

we abandon all the fancy things Love likes.

But holy hell what you admit, 

Under the guise of velvet skies.

hopeless tries and sapphire eyes.

god, I’ve never met a storm quite like you.

#poetry #poet #challenge #prose

She walks up the stairs slowly, each step creaking softly in the fading daylight.

The house is quiet, and it feels peaceful, and that’s how it would stay in her memory.

Her hand runs past the banister feeling the old wood under the fingers and sensing each crack, sharp edge, or smooth line. Finally, she carefully reaches the third-floor window and opens it, listening to the low creak as she does so. She smiles and slips off the white cotton shirt that gently falls to the ground. She leans over the edge of the window and flexes the muscles, feeling her back start to bleed. She smiles again and inhales.

It’s time.

Deep lines open on her skin and scratch between her shoulder blades, red-stained feathers slipping out and blossoming like small flowers breaking the milk-white flesh as if through melting snow.

Time stops, and then suddenly, everything catches light.

There is nothing more in the soft summer air but an angel’s soft sigh.

Let's face a fact. Science isn't political. Science is science. Science goes to the heart of facts, based on hard evidence, not hearsay. I hear all this talk about how the vaccine is a plot. Conservative media, certain politicians, downplay the need and there are people who buy into that notion. Shame on them.

The vaccine gives you a chance to live. Metal won't stick to your face. It's not Russia, China or India, our own government, or whatever; what this is, is a failure to trust in what works. For you, your family, your friends.

Over 612,000 died from Covid had no say because there was no vaccine. I am willing to bet if they hadn't died, they would be the first ones at a clinic begging for the vaccine in order to live.

To all the naysayers, I wish you well and hope you don't get ill, especially with Delta on the rise. But dammit ... have trust, have faith, and stop listening to false news that says you will be just fine without it.

Truth is: you won't be. Just ask the parents who have lost a total of 300 kids to the Delta variant. 300 kids that will never have the chance to grow up.

Oodle doodle oh!

Sing it high, sing it low.

Mind bent

arcs and corners

signals sent

curves and squiggles

jelly wiggles

don’t turn left

circle round

no squares

no dares

crooked stairs

pair in two’s

comfy shoes

stamp feet

feel heat

start over

roll in clover

’til it’s over

sing once more

high, then low

oodle doodle oh!

Sometimes I think summer might be the saddest season

I know you’ll think I’m crazy for saying so

But it’s too good, too perfect, too true

That’s why it’s gone before you realize what you had

Like sand cupped in your hands

It quickly spills through the crevices between your fingers

And when night comes the breeze smells too fine

Of memories, of firsts and lasts

And all the times in between that you thought would go on forever

The cicadas sing too sweetly

Like the soundtrack to your favorite movie

And it makes you think that your life deserves a score too

Because in summer everything feels that much more alive

And important and real

But the trick is that in feeling the hum of your insides

When you drive with the windows down

Or the gentle careess of grass behind your knees

When you lay in the park at sunset

You eventually realize that life ends in a period and not an ellipsis

That one day you will feel nothing at all and that

Time is the cruelest season

When all you want is an Infinite summer night

steaming ramen

and the smell of soapy water

even that

i romanticize

until it's lost its flavour

like everything else

a grey life, a bland love

it's all gone stale

but i keep moving, keep swallowing

keep living

and for what?

like eating

because i know i should

and for nothing else

senseless, feelingless

but it keeps me alive

to be free

to hold my own life

in my own hands

to be free

to release the stagnant possibilities

and embrace the progressing unknown

to be free

to be able to breathe

as my mind unlocks its cages

and my spirit bursts from its cocoon

to be free...

(am i finally free?)

Driving to work, I note the beauty that borders the road - also a good way to avoid collisions with hungry deer (woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks,...) searching for that next patch of yummy plants on the other side. Amidst the green foliage dappled with yellows, purples and reds, are naked trees, leaning, fallen, crumpled, dead. A silent reminder that even the majestic, long-lived tree returns to the dust from which it once grew.

I couldn't help but start to think about what I was going to write and then I realized that I was violating the rules by pondering my subject so instead I am just writing even though I am quite certain it will end up being nonsense as is the state of my unfiltered brain. This morning at 3:14 a.m. I couldn't stop my brain from flitting thought to thought in such rapid succession I thought I was going to suffer some sort of breakdown. At 4:16 a.m. I did not have any relief from the mental deluge and at 4:26 a.m. I gave up and just started talking to my bedmate. Then that led to other things which actually did help calm down my brain so I guess what I am saying is if your brain is acting wild, you should...oh, times up.