Well Tired

Day 7, poem 6

This is late because I was, well, tired yesterday and I spent hours searching for the right acrostic phrase to use. I ended up going with an old headline from The Onion: “Well, It Looks Like My Work Here Has Been Successfully Avoided.” Don’t love this poem, but at least it’s done.

Well Tired
It goes again, here, another circle. It always
looks rainy through the streaky window,
like winter plans to spend another month outside
my apartment. Was I always tired? Was it always
work to get these words made or were they just
here when I needed them? The endless 2020 of it all
has left me a vampire. Sunless, bloodless. I've
been trapped in this time loop until I lose count, never
successfully finding the escape room key. Can I use a hint? Can starting scratch ever be
avoided?

The Former Queen of Hell Makes a Hello Fresh Meal Kit

Day 5, Poem 5

This one goes out to Astra Logue and adulting in general.

The Former Queen of Hell Makes a Hello Fresh Meal Kit

The instructions say Prep: 5 min and you haven't been counting
but you'd estimate something like 18 so far. The scallions
aren't as thin as they seem in the photo. Maybe it's your knife.
Maybe it's your hands, although they sliced just fine
at your old job. Even with all the screaming. Scallions won't
even when you lop off their root-covered heads, separate
whites from greens. No screams but the milky water hisses
when it bubbles up and escapes the rice to run down the sides
of the pot and die on impact against the burner. Always a mess
for later. Maybe the pan will behave. Bright red flesh
is at least familiar. TIP: If there's excess grease in your pan
carefully pour it out. That's all they tell you, enigmatic,
like there's no special tool for the task in a world that wants
a potato masher without warning or maybe a zester.
You try to soup spoon the orange fat up but it spits
in your face and each scoop is too shallow. What else
can you do but throw paper towels at it and fry them up
as they soak up what you don't need. You're running out
of paper towels, constantly. The package says 6 Flour Tortillas
but you count and count and only find 5. Remember
when you used to be formidable? Now you have sour cream
in your hair and somehow don't own a single slotted spoon.

Clotho

Day 4, poem 4

This was very, very vaguely inspired by the prompt. Slightly. Kind of.

Clotho

Unclip the strings and write her
back to existence. Press hands
hard over the lifeless heart
and electrify.
Lightbringer, lifespeaker,
Scoop up her beauty
and make it anew,
put your mouth to hers.
Breathe. Call her
from the edge, puzzle her 
together. Slot yourself
in the jagged space that fits.

Lupus in Fabula

Day 3, poem 3

Today’s prompt was a bit complicated, so I’m doing yesterday’s again. From Haggard Hawks: “LUPUS IN FABULA is a Latin equivalent of ‘speak of the Devil,’ used when someone who is the subject of a conversation suddenly appears. It literally means ‘the wolf in the story.'”

Lupus in Fabula

I have sharp ears, you know
as in triangles ending in a single point but also sharp as in
the better to hear you with, my dear. I hear you.
I know what you say of me

The hair at my nape rises to meet
the distant sound of my name in your particular accent.
Perhaps you should not go crying wolf so often.
Each time I grow closer, closer.

Tanglemonger

Day 2, poem 2

For today’s Haggard Hawks prompt: “TANGLE-MONGER (n.) someone who never gives a straightforward answer to a question [19thC slang]”

Tanglemonger

Let down your hair
so I might braid it while you ask
and ask and ask your questions. You burst
with them tonight. You put your palms
on the table like I'm suspected of some crime
and order me to tell it to you
straight. Where's the artistry in that,
my dear? Sit down, lean back, close
your eyes. Feel my fingers on your scalp,
my words dripping down the flat
of your back. Once upon a time,
I tell you. I tell you once
upon a time. Once there was a woman
who needed you, who gave you tales
to keep you close. They say
she loves you still. You don't sit
still, your hair knots about my hands
like you too want to keep me.
Yet you've never had the patience
to make happily ever after. The endings
come long after you go. I tell them
to the listening shadows late
when I cannot sleep.

Black Cherry Warhead

Day 1, poem 1

Another year, another NaPoWriMo. My 2022 hyperfixations include Legends of Tomorrow and Encanto, so let’s see how this goes. Today’s body prompt required Sara Lance and 90s nostalgia.

Black Cherry Warhead

You see the body from a distance, poison branching blue-black beneath the surface of skin. The body. Not your body, not anymore. If you call it your body, the dissonance will eat you inside out. You’re new now, 3D printed into a version of yourself wiped clean. These bones aren’t cracked with tell-tale signs of childhood falls. These aren’t the teeth that ached a path through your gums and were rubber banded into order. These lips have never chapped, never kissed, never closed around a black cherry Warhead with a grimace until you sucked past the acid coating and found the inoffensive sweetness. This body is what comes after, the hard candy shell eroding, the pocket of sour liquid waiting for release.