if there's anything tumblr has taught me it's that this guy named franz kafka was in agony 365 days a year
John Green; Paper Towns
Something's haunting me from within
With teeth, claws, and an evil grin.
Unlike what the movies show
Mine doesn't mess with lights and photos.
I don't live in a haunted house,
Nor do I own the dybbuk box.
So why am I troubled when I try to sleep?
Why is my sanity so hard to keep?
Do you know what's even peculiar?
It's how much all this feels familiar!
They've been living within me all this while
Things I shoved down and never reconciled.
My brain can be a surpassing mess
Make the entire horror genre seem witless.
Because I don't live in a haunted house
Nor do I own the dybbuk box
But do you hear a girl constantly weep?
Until I finally fall asleep.
I fear I cannot give us a happy ending,
So I'll write us one. A "pret-ending"
A future where you get poems written for you
Because words are my "old, new, borrowed, and blue."
An ending in which our days begin together.
Mondays where I whine about the weather,
Tuesday mornings with a cup of tea,
I complain about a colleague, and you say, "How dare she!"
We'll make a pact to meet halfway
To have lunch together on Wednesdays.
Thursdays are for you to decide
Because I can't find anything to rhyme. I tried.
Fridays, we watch a movie or a show.
Flip a coin, heads I win- tails you lose. Let it go.
Weekends that I spend hearing you sing
Or sit and stare at you while you do your own thing.
We play a lot of rock-paper-scissors,
And the loser gets to chase away the lizards.
We fight over reading a book or watching the sundown
I look at you, watching the last rays shine, and put my book down.
Save me when I try to burn our kitchen
I'll do the dishes if you cook the chicken.
I'll watch you fall asleep
And talk you through your bad dreams.
Wake me up after your walk
You know how much I hate alarm clocks.
If wishes and boons were true
I'd trade the Midas touch for you.
As long as we cannot have of our happy ending,
I'll keep on writing us a pret-ending.
Malyen Oretsev in Ruin and Rising (Leigh Bardugo)
I read that Grief is a derived word
A word that stemmed from the Latin word gravis.
Gravis - Heavy.
A weight that we've to carry on our own
Because there's only I in Grief.
Most often there are no exit wounds.
It tears your skin and lodges within.
Sometimes we learn to live with it.
Sometimes we have to cut ourselves open and let it out.
And when there are exit wounds,
You've to be courageous enough to let it pass through you.
Tear open your skin twice.
There's no Us in Grief.
I can only sit next to you and hold your hand
While you're hurting.
Hoping you'll pull through.
And then help you stitch your exit wounds.
Who is the real subject of most love poems? Not the beloved. It is the hole. When I desire you, a part of me is gone: my want of you partakes of me. So reasons the lover at the edge of eros. The presence of want awakens in him nostalgia for wholeness. His thoughts turn toward questions of personal identity: he must recover and reincorporate what is gone if he is to be a complete person. […] Most people find something disturbingly lucid and true in Aristophanes’ image of lovers as people cut in half. All desire is for a part of oneself gone missing, or so it feels to the person in love.
Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay.
COFFEE AND POETRY
Coffee and Poetry. How similar!
If you think they're poles apart,
You'll be surprised when I start.
You consume one
while the latter consumes you
Go on, try one while you brew.
Impedes your sleep
With a word, a line, a sip, or a cup
Stops you before you can think of giving up
Dark and addictive,
Sometimes even bitter.
Yet, somehow makes you feel better.
Coffee and Poetry. How similar!
Intoxicates you while it's also a detox
A mug or paper filled with paradox.
A piece of me is always missing, Like the last block of lego that I can never seem to find One empty space right in the center of the jigsaw puzzle. I'm not sure if I lost it along the way. I'm not sure if I'm yet to find it. But lately, the gap seems more blatant. I'm anxious that it's visible to the people around me. That when they look at me, they see half a person. It's almost like I'm mimicking a being While I'm on the quest for the missing elements.
Sometimes, everything is wholesome! Golden skies, daisies, moongazing, Dusty libraries where ghosts of dead poets linger, Tight hugs, acts that mean "I'm thinking of you.", I look at my picture with my friends, smiling ear to ear And the jigsaw puzzle is complete. (or it was, then.) Some memories in me are so perfect that, The missing lego piece starts to feel like an extra piece From the table, you're trying to put together. It works fine without it, and there's nowhere to put it.
Then I'm back in my bed, back in my head. And I cannot remember how to be a whole person again I eat chocolate until I'm nauseated Or I never draw the curtains open and let the light flow through. I want to live life to the fullest, I never want to be seen in public again, I want all-consuming love, I want to believe I'm worthy of it, I want to feel complete when I'm alone, I want someone to feel complete with.
I want and I want and I want… Socrates said, (Yes, I went there) "He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have." What about, She who is never content with who she is? What about me?
Nanowrimo starts tomorrow. I am not currently writing novels, but I do write poetry, and I think it would be nice to set myself a challenge and write consistently for a month. I love prompts, so I came up with some which are meant specifically for poetry, but can be used for prose too. Feel free to use them, if you want, and tag me if you do! (I will like and reblog from my main blog, @fragiledewdrop)
NANOWRIMO 2021 POETRY PROMPTS
1. A letter to the dead
2. Healing herbs
3. Heaven, if it exists
4. A silk glove on the ground
5. A solitary candle
6. A memory of light
7. The burden of immortality
8. White night
9. Staring contest with a statue
10. Black lace
11. Message in a bottle
12. A half-remembered song
13. Snowflakes in the dark
14. Waves in a bathtub
15. Winter warmth
16. Forsaken blades
17. Blood on white cotton
18. Ancient stone
19. A legend about roses
20. Three minutes of silence
21. The bells of dawn
22. Whispering trees
23. A solitary rider
24. Winged messenger
25. The language of thorns
26. Fallen hero
27. Forgiven villain
28. Resilient glass
29. Sturdy boots
30. The gates of frost
(hears a song lyric) this would make a great all-lower case fanfiction title