late luminescence

posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36294

Liar, liar

posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/36173

isn't it so easy to imagine?feel the night's breath waft life into a book
a hushed melody crumbles
erodes at the nightless stars
as it puffs like creme brulee

coronavirus

COVID-19, with a little over 19
months until I'm gone
with the wind, with life
with heaven's plan and hell's pain
graduated from a childhood that is just short
a few years, stolen under spring's simmer

and metastasized into summer's sonder
as the AC freeze dries my sullen smile
i have often wondered if lying face up
on the street hollering as it burns outside my window
belly up, bottom's up
would free me

do you think death's champagne would taste like
rain and concrete humidity
as it rolls sticky memories of sunken lemonade
stands on your tongue
radio songs belted on the highway
trails off into mournful tears

and like the songs, i too have changed
too much, too little, just right
as i wander with goldilocks and the bears
regressing into a 9 years old's fright
the mirror on the wall doesn't lie
scraping chalkboard nails,
add 1 tally to the right of all the wrinkles
even the moon can't press from my brow
the memory of the sirens that scream "COVID-19"

corona virus

it puffs like blowfish that pierces my skin
salt erodes at normality, whittles down sanity
the melody crashes at the undeniable crescendo
a book knocked over the bed, forgotten
wasn't it so easy to imagine?

when it wasn't my last lifeline,
when it could simply be, not had to be

excitement depressed, repressed in my own head

imagine, not having to

imagine

"The shameless rule the world. My feathery darlings, fate floats in the wind. Only the flagrant can survive hell's star."

But as the picture wept swirling colors into the roots, he swallowed ballerina dreams. He wanted to be beautiful, yearning to flutter like blushing butterflies, exist dramatically like rouge roses.

So when the wish's kiss wafted him away, he didn't settle. He twirled, he grand-jetéd, he flew.

And falling, he wondered if all dreams lead to Icarus.

posted on: https://writetheworld.org/?code=3bd44680-09e0-40be-81e4-a18235598cc0#/viewing-a-piece/742902

graceful filigree, i wanted to be beautiful like them

but when i danced, baring my soul, they chanted

i am a wobbly skyscraper ready to topple

among a world of mini glass villas

they are tiny rosettes in full bloom

stems arcing upright, princess petals flushed

with prim smiles and sleek hair anointed with morning dew

and i, the errant ugly palm tree

whose dry leaves are stubbornly unrecyclable

the frothy tulle looks ridiculous,

out of place, against my lanky trunk

the harsh voice of the laoshi punctuates my name

all wrong, all wrong, all wrong

the smack on my rump doesn't sting, but

the blatant disapproval behind it aches

too old to be cute, 

too clumsy to be elegant

and when they ask us to split ourselves

open against cruel tile, triumphant smiles mirrored

i stumble, still attempting to rip myself smaller

sweaty bar slips in my hairy hand,

wrinkled compared to their peachy youth

the swan's feathers unfurl, delicate lilting melodies

i palm the beat and am dragged behind every note

shriveled brown marrs pale marble

and when my nails tire of being filled with filth

clawing to be even a speck of mud on their dainty toes

the music plays, they bloom, I walk away

for years, their smirks and voices haunt me, taunting

swans and tulle, mascara and eyeshadow

avoiding all the reminders, the proof that I

so now, when they tell me to dance

I tell them I don't know how

Posted On: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/35893 & Daily Read