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Jul 01
poetry

thriller novels and other methods of swinging from chandeliers

july - tea lights - unfortunate events of spilling red wine - barnes and noble
wednesday evening licking stains from wood and climbing on bookcases and jumping in pools that aren't ours
throwing novels on skyscrapers of children's section questionable topics and people watching
sticky summers in white leather cars and coughing up thick sea salt
(stop eating bread and butter in heavy slices behind counters that show back to the future too many times in a row)

11 am - dried up face paint - screens thick with dead bugs and dust - tire swing
climbing on your shoulders and yelling in lakes shining watermelon
melted popsicles in dirty sheets on clotheslines on martha's vineyard
olivia rodrigo in campers trundling down dirt roads
(forgetting that we don't know how to drive)

burnt matches - you - me - dead fish
ready to say goodbye to glowing lanterns, dolphins that don't show up, dreaming on lawn mowers
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Posted: 07.01.21
Mar 15
poetry

for you, for me

avocados, pears, forget-me-nots.
she twirls out a list and smiles. 
dental floss. chapstick for me.
don't forget avocados
i already wrote that, see?

mangos, conditioner, a new coat.
she bites her lip.
avocados!
shush.

lotion, rice cakes, candles.
a new notebook.
why?
for me. 
muffins, for breakfast. 
avocados!!

pausing, she strokes my hair and giggles.
avocados.

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Posted: 03.15.21
Feb 16
poetry

Thither comes a dashing gentleman

When wind whips my hair and blows it across my face dramatically, 
I pretend to be in a Jane Austen novel.
For, what! I cry to the sky through my hoarse throat,
thither comes a dashing gentleman!

(the sky is grey like murky tea.)
Dear, dear me, I am faint! I sweep my hand to my forehead and stumble across the ground.
Are you alright? (I switch to being a handsome young man in a grey waistcoat and a concerned expression.)
Just a little… c-cold, I stammer helplessly.

He regards me and invites me on his horse,
(I am quite faint at this point, and my skin is turning blue.)
and rides home with me draped in his wool coat and clutching tight to his horse (and most certainly not him.)
I am propped in bed with warm tea, the colour of the sky, and he waits anxiously in the parlor, as when he carried me in I looked quite cold and he is wondering how I am doing. 
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Posted: 02.16.21
Jan 22
poetry

uncontrollable

The beckoning whale call.

The canoe, my tongue.

I, the sailor who cannot sail,
simply sits at the mouth and waits,
waits
for the whale
to open its wide galaxy and
exhale 

My lukewarm brain.

The sailor panicks, and,
lured by the scent
of the breath
and the gelt, the dark chocolate guilt,
tumbles overboard and convulses,
trying to drown, drown in
salt and
silt.

If you've ever drowned I think you know what it feels like.

My uncontrollable urge.

I wish I hadn't opened my eyes, because gosh
the saltwater stung
like sun baked fish 
in the freezing sun
and I
the only one
with melting guts and squirming lungs.

The sea rollicked, that poor old sailor, nets only tangled him deeper in the yawn

For if the whale smiled it was lost to darkness,

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Posted: 01.22.21
Jan 04
poetry

Cold - A Tiny Writes Collaborative Poem

These awesome YWP writers describe what being cold is like: Roses, Mysticat, dogpoet, Treblemaker, LadyMidnight, laurenm, Moonsand, Yellow Sweater, Ice Blink, infinitelyinfinite3, amaryllis, Crescent_Moon, Whitney, cedar.

Frigid
Glacial
Frozen
Yeeep!
Unfriendly
Squirmy
Chilly
Determined
Bitter
Apathetic
Frost
Confined
Numb 
Exhilarating 
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Posted: 01.04.21
Dec 28
poetry

salty royalty

because I like the idea of being a queen,
grapevines twisting around my heart,
southern noons painted in pointalism,
beauteous con artists bringing me briny gold
and sand that I trailed over my checkered marble.

and if I ask take me out to the middle of the sea
so my petticoats float around me, as a jellyfish would sting, I scream into the salt. 

because when the rain falls it's a queen's bath,
drops evolving into wet petals when they hit the heat soaked gravel
queens don't ask to wear shoes.

evenings covered up in veils that cloud me in confection.
4:30 am dances on balconies, twirling and teetering and tipping towards the weeds.
mid-day heat steaming through the floor of my white leather car.
open the windows and breathe until there's too much bay air in my lungs,
like sails billowing with whomping breezes. 
the harbor is my home.

queens don't ask to walk on water.
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Posted: 12.28.20
Oct 17
poetry

Nickels and Nuts

I got on the swing.
It was cold. A little damp. Years of me rubbed into the surface.
Hello. To the brown floor of planet.
It's cold.
If I did a handstand, how long do you think I could hold it?
I fell.

Farther up went my swing.
Circular. Grilled cheese. I am a mess.
Laughter.
Do you think seventh grade is better?
Worse math grades.
Then again,
Higher went my swing.
I try to do a pirouette,
But my eyes spin in their pockets - 
Sockets, get it right!
And my feet stick to the ground.
The skin spinning around itself. Like a tie-dye.
That didn't work.

I fell in the water yesterday.
It felt like a cold nickel. Iron on my tongue.
Plus, nuts (macademia) taste like nausea.
Farther went my swing.
But I knocked into the fence.
So I stopped swinging. I went inside.
My veins throbbing with nickels and nuts.
The swing was still going. 

 
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Posted: 10.17.20
Oct 14
fiction

A fable

An old woman and a young girl stood by the seashore. The sea was raging, large waves leaping onto the sand and gobbling back into the water in a curl of cackles. The old woman shivered. The girl opened her arms and embraced the breeze.
"I want to go in!" said the girl.
"It is too cold," said the woman. 
"I don't mind. I want to go in!"
"You will get wet. You are not dressed for swimming."
"I will go naked if I must."
"No."
"I have to!"
"Why?"
The girl pondered it for some time. Then she ran straight into the water.
"Why!" yelled the old woman, clutching her arms on the shore.
"I don't know!" The girl plunged through the waves, laughing, shouting. Irresistibly, deliriously, happy.

The moral of the story: Don't question the why. Live in the moment.

 
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Posted: 10.14.20
Sep 10
nonfiction

Rules for the 2020 middle schooler

1. It doesn't matter what mask you're wearing. But... WEAR ONE.
2. When inside, hand sanitizer is god. Worship it.
3. When outside, it's perfectly normal to be about two feet apart. With no mask on. (Hey, there's fresh air, right?)
4. It's no longer rude to surreptitiously scoot away from someone who's too close for comfort (or just someone you don't like... but keep it surreptitious.)
5. Your teachers will continually comment on how new everything is for them. This is another way of saying please be nice to us, we're surviving on coffee alone. (But also, yay teachers. Thanks guys.)
6. You can't whisper in class anymore, because no one can tell you're whispering. It's easy to forget that the most expressive part of your face is hidden, so be prepared to ask and be asked "what??" about 15 times a day.
7. It's actually pretty easy to tell if someone is smiling, but you never know. Be nice.

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Posted: 09.10.20

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