#napowrimo2018

[smallchangepoetry]

A cry for help

Let me go to You, every time

I want to run.

Let me call You,

between sobs of hopelessness

Let me see You, when I’m blind.

Let me go to You

even when I don’t believe.

save me

take my addiction

pierce my heart and squeeze all the bad out

Oh God

I believe, God please

help my unbelief

Copyright J.Fox [13.12. 2018]

[missinglight]

[workisplay]

[cgcpoems]

9/30, by Caitlin Conlon

the guilt of loving him before he was ready for it is a burden that i refuse to take off of my back. when did i become this much of a masochist, bathing daily in the blood of heartache, filling my cup with nostalgia and chugging it down before it has a chance to cool? let’s blame it on the brain, my undeveloped less than 25-year-old brain, or the gentleness with which we  approach our differences.

i yawn and his secrets shift in my cheeks like baby teeth that refuse to let go. everything with him comes back to my mouth because i don’t think a safer place exists and  he is the only thing i have ever wanted to protect more than my heart.

it’s beautiful, how there are so many ways for us to say “I miss you.” i hate that this has to be one of them.

[lslaathaug]

We stand in the community gallery; you’ve just hung your vibrant dripping orchid that you’ve dedicated to your mother who passed not so long ago. It hangs on wire I’d given you. My drawing skills are beginner, you say, and I won’t learn anything 

at the intermediate watercolor workshop.

And I take a deep breath and hold back the anger sour in my gut. With one comment you dismiss all that I’m worked for over the last ten years– ten years of painting on and off and drawing for even longer. I am not a beginner. My paintings hang colorful and bright on the other side of the room, and I’d written on one (finished that afternoon): “I’m learning to be brave.” These hands, dry from scrubbing paint stains, have learned to swim in deep paper oceans under a bleeding sun, that too much water crumples the paper, that scotch tape is not painter’s tape, that sometimes done is better than good, and a good drawing is essential. I don’t know everything, but I know more than I did ten years ago when I had no money or knowledge 

about paint or canvases. Instead I remember at age 16 

 making my own canvas with glue, printer paper, cardboard, and tears. Here I painted lilac sunrises of better days. This is my growth. This is my intermediate. Do you think I’m some beginner who’s lost her way, who’s aiming for things higher than her reach? Do you want to guide me to the right path? Why does your path happens be your sister’s 400 dollar watercolor workshop instead of the cheaper 100-200 dollar weekend one that I signed up for? This is where I could tell you that I look all of the skill around and me, all the art prints in stores, and think, Yes, I can do that. Yes, my paintings hang on the wall next to yours. And I’m not afraid to take them down and start again. This is what I’m thinking and can’t tell you. So, instead I smile and tell you, l consider myself intermediate.

[jasminesuntrell]

Long Distance Limerick [25/30]

I want you so badly to come home that I write it in most every poem you're not here not anywhere near Tired of writing the same poem.

[brittneymelvin]

Day 23 by Brittney Melvin

[dokidokicosplayclub]

don’t

Don’t - Time passes and I sit here still I think night is becoming day again I can’t tell My windows have been dark for so long. Don’t - I wish I could sleep Sleep would pass the endless time But every time I close my eyes Nothing comes but horrible Nightmares Waking That don’t fade when I open them again. Don’t forget - It is better to sit here, safe And to wait. Keep waiting. And hope. Hope that something will be different This time this time thistimethistimethistime Don’t forget - This is for you. There is nothing for me In this empty loop of time But to think about what was. I remember. I remember everything. I will never forget. Don’t forget me. I am here. I must always be here. Please come home To this place that is no one’s home I haven’t forgotten. I will never forget. Don’t forget me. ~ (Happy end of National Poetry Writing Month, Literature Club. <3)

~Monika

[synbeam]

You are paint that never dries

Which is to say

A smeared sunset that used to be a girl swimming in a pool wearing silver earrings and basketball shorts

Because why would i change out of these clothes just to swim for 3 minutes?

I could talk all day about what you used to be

A girl made of soft, padded edges, eyes made of coal, knuckles bruised, arms like wire, a body so pale you might as well be a splotch of white paint on a canvas

Which is to say

Nobody will see you anyway. Nobody's going to write poems about you that talk about how you're allergic to silver or didn't want to play track in 9th grade but did it anyway or that you liked listening to Two Door Cinema Club four summers ago when you stayed with your dad down in Virginia

Do you still listen to that band? Was I ever stuck in the back of your mind like you were in mine?

[starfly-inq]

Sonnet 18

Do not compare me to a summers day, For you think that I am warmth unending

i am summer days, summer nights and all the winters in between

Summer's lease makes way for winter haste, And we'll dance in the snow like its sunlight

Do you complain too much when the sun burns When it shakes your heart from your skin like that? the unlearned bitter taste between your eyes

its every day the sunlight raises, dies in mortal presence taken by the storm in danger dusted cries I see you fall

as if eternal summer never fades the rough winds lead and sun will dim again

prompts: write a response to a Shakespeare sonnet and Im gonna say "never seen the sun in... ever" even though I wanted 2 save that one guhh I call this one "gosh dammit novah please don't write about the seasons ever again" also yes I know this is the most generic sonnet I could have chosen but I like it so.

[ramblingsofawildmeg]

[missinglight]

[workisplay]

[eveningcinema]

still remember you as if i was just yesterday sent off to daycare it can be real hard when none of the kids in class can speak your language i felt all choked up suffocated by my tongue twisted like a knot and you were right there, soft fur soaking up my tears, soothing away fears today i’m twenty-one and yet i still find myself in the same old spot i guess i never quite grew out of that feeling of isolation i guess i never really learned how to grow up; wishing that you knew. wishing i could take a look underneath my bed, and find you right there. wishing that i had never misplaced you that day; hope you are okay.

to my nameless teddy bear // yuan // napowrimo 2018; 4/30

[lslaathaug]

In a one-bedroom apartment she’s reminiscing, a young woman, who already feels old. The weight of her heart 

hunches her shoulders and adds girth to her frame. She wonders if life would be easier if she was skinnier because she looks at photos and recalls a waif with big eyes and bigger hair nineteen and lovestruck, his hand in hers sneaking into abandoned houses, and lying in golden fields, the cool summer nights of bicycle rides in the dark. How much easier it was fall in and out of love when you felt invincible and didn’t know it-- when you’re more than the woman cloaked in black, like the heart she’s always joked about and drenched in wine and smoke-- if she could be but the night and swallow the sun, moon, the stars, and all that ever was-- but no, she's a whisper one word slipping into silence.

[jasminesuntrell]

I Bet You Think This Poem is About You (It Is) [27/30]

You took your love and by love, I mean your promise of friendship and loyalty, You took it- snatched it from me, and disappeared with no shame. How can you be "best friends" one day and mortal enemies the next? The answer is simple, You were never my friend. You never cared. I was something for you to pass the time while you learned to socialize and now the only thing left is your fake well wishes and my righteous anger.

Fuck you.