Prose

How We Become

~ Unwrithings ~ 1 Comment

We, battered, molested and assaulted,

abused and silenced.

We, with the secrets we keep,

passed down to our daughters as whispered warnings.

We, with our apologies we make in so many ways,

we create a new language.

We, with our bleeding bodies, aching cheeks, and sacrilegious skin,

forced into glass castles,

with fairytales,

short ceilings,

and narrow halls.

We, with our inconvenient emotions and loud voices,

told to abandon the angry, crazy woman,

Oh, but the beautiful boldness of her honesty.

Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, we become.

There is a fierceness in the way we transform the abuse,

as background noise to our lives.

The nature of being women.

We, the unshakeable trees bearing witness to generations of women who power through to find happiness in all the grossness and unjustness.

We, the daises growing in the cracks of sidewalks.

We, the waterfalls pouring our hearts out in all we do.

We, the rumbling on the rocks, with our weary shoulders and bulging bellies, always marching forward in the hopes one day we will understand our power in the way men already do.

The very things that make us look weak, are evidence of our strength.

As much as we are beaten, we rise up with life. We grow it, we become it.

Take up your power. You are Earth itself.

You see, there is a day we will take these wrongs, and birth something beautiful.

NaPoWriMo – Day 4 (Dream)

~ Unwrithings ~ 1 Comment

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem based on an image from a dream. This prompt excited me since I dream often, and have been working on lyrics based on an image from a dream I had! The image was of a man crying strings of rope (I know, weird). Anyway, here is the resulting poem.

My Tears Hang Like String

My tears hang like string from your face,
I tie them up so you can keep my pain.
And you’re sitting there, in your chair, signing SOS in the air
How’d we get here tonight?

You turn left, I turn right, I’m afraid we will never reunite.
It gets harder every time
My only hope is we can undo this end and find a new way to be friends again
Is it okay if I wait for that day?
Or does it make me too afraid?

Oh stranger, stranger can you still love me?
Even if we don’t know who I am?
Oh stranger, stranger will you ever come home?
Or am I to live this life alone?

It’s getting dark, you make a remark, that sounds like a cry
Why’d I? Why’d I? Why’d I?
I have no good reply.
But I want to hide in the past where you can find me, if you ever find yourself  hesitating,
you can always come back to me.

The pressure is getting thick, do I tell the truth to make this stick, or do I open the door
To let in one more lie?
I gotta tie this up tonight.

Why’d I? Why’d I? Why’d I?
Why’d I have to leave?
Why’d I have to believe there was something better for me?
Why’d I have to go?
And leave us all alone?

Oh stranger, stranger can you still love me?
Even if we don’t know who I am?
Oh stranger, stranger will you ever come home?
Or am I to live this life alone?
Or am I to live this life alone?

5634660787_3c24482a86_oPhoto by

NaPoWriMO – Day 3 (Word Bank)

~ Unwrithings ~ Leave a comment

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem using your new “word bank.” I created a word bank following the prompt instructions but I am only going to post the resulting poem just so this entry doesn’t become too long.

Doubt

I’m burning out,

you’re running cold,

doubts, are overexposed,

in this prison house,

and there’s the constant tickin’

that’s got me thinkin’,

how,

there is no better time than,

now,

to pull the trigger.

But, then I linger,

just long enough,

to not be done,

with us.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 2 (Specific Place)

~ Unwrithings ~ 5 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem about a specific place —  a particular house or store or school or office. With class tonight, my time is super limited so I am building off of a poem I wrote previously!

Arizona

Where wild meets west, the vast sky turns into a real-life painting of mountains burning purples, blues, yellows, reds, and oranges twice a day; a prosaic production. Stars sprinkle the same sky at night, until you crick your neck trying to count them all. On the hottest days, it smells like melting asphalt. But on others, it smells like dusty earth giving rise to life—Javelinas chortling while grazing prickly pear. Rattlesnakes coiling and hissing. Rabbits hopscotching across rocks speckled brown. Lizards darting between low-lying, crackly bushes. Cacti standing guard, arms outstretched, as if offering you a hug.

Here, in the valley, there is space to stretch out. There is fresh air to breathe and time to breathe it. The days are warm and long; the kind of days you want to cozy up to until you fall into a sweet slumber with:

Dreamcatchers hanging
above, snaring bad dreams to
dissolve in the sun.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 1 (Action Metaphor)

~ Unwrithings ~ 10 Comments

I am so excited to participate in National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) again. I have been slacking on writing this past year, so hoping this will be the kick-start I need. I enjoyed the experience last time I participated in full back in 2018—check out my highlights reel from that time.

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is: Write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life – one that typically isn’t done all that often, or only in specific circumstances. 

Love Is Like Carrying An Overloaded Plastic Grocery Bag

Sometimes I feel love is like carrying a plastic grocery bag so overloaded with expectation that it begins to stretch and stretch from the weight until I am holding two thinly stretched pieces of plastic that I hope will stay intact until I can get somewhere safe and set the load down.

But instead,
the bag breaks
and spills out
all the contents
of my heart
for everyone
to see.

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NaPoWriMo – Day 12 (Haibun)

~ Unwrithings ~ 5 Comments

Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt: We’d like to challenge you to write a haibun that takes in the natural landscape of the place you live. 

I am entirely outside my comfort zone with this NaPoWriMo challenge, but this prompt in particular had me sweating! I had to Google “haibun” and then “haiku” to even understand this prompt. However, I wanted to at least try it so here we go!

Where wild meets west, the vast sky turns into a real-life painting of mountains burning purples, blues, yellows, reds, and oranges twice a day; a prosaic production. Stars sprinkle the same sky at night, until you crick your neck trying to count them all. On the hottest days, it smells like melting asphalt. But on others, it smells like dusty earth giving rise to life—Javelinas chortling while grazing prickly pear. Rattlesnakes coiling and hissing. Rabbits hopscotching across rocks speckled brown. Lizards darting between low-lying, crackly bushes. Cacti standing guard, arms outstretched, as if offering you a hug.

Here, in the valley, there is space to stretch out. There is fresh air to breathe and time to breathe it. The days are warm and long; the kind of days you want to cozy up to until you fall into a sweet slumber with:

Dreamcatchers hanging
above, snaring bad dreams to
dissolve in the sun.

photo-1438979179121-ab4e92cdb51d

NaPoWriMo – Day 1 (Shame)

~ Unwrithings ~ 8 Comments

For the first time ever, I am participating in National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo)! I will be responding to the writing prompts posted on the NaPoWriMo site each day during the month of April. The goal is to write 30 poems in 30 days.  Today’s prompt is: Today, we challenge you to write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure. It could be eating too many cookies, or bad movies, or the time you told your sister she could totally brush her teeth with soap. It’s up to you. Happy writing!

When I was nine years old,
My mother went to the hospital,
unable to remember,
her own name,
or that I was her daughter.

There she battled for her life while
I went on with my life,
never missing a day of school,
where people would smile,
and teachers would ask if I was okay.
Of course I was okay, I thought.
And the house, already big, only seemed bigger,
without the person who made it home.

The waiting, like a quiet room filled with tension.

Finally I got to see her, lying as pale as the sheets that covered her hospital bed,
with her arms outstretched,
I was happy she knew who I was,
but I didn’t hug her,
because I was afraid her brain disease was contagious,
and I didn’t know any better.
My mom returned home weeks later,
but she wasn’t who she was before.
She was using new words,
and forgetting the words,
she used to know so well.
She was different,
and yet no one questioned it.
We just smiled at her, loving her,
not for who she used to be,
or who she would become,
but for the whole process that she was.

And years later, I found myself wishing I had
hugged my mom.

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