NaPoWriMo Day 25: With Your Airplane Parts

With Shovels and Bricks

I never thought I was fluent

In getting better

Lemon water and clothes hanging to dry

Just in time, but

This wrinkled cotton duvet, signs of adulthood

Mixed with tragedy, cool against my unmarked arms

Says something different

Here is something that’s true:

We were in love and I forgot

My heart breaking like confetti, pull the edges

Take the crown and I’ll keep

The bad joke

A spiral that goes up

Is still a spiral circling, bird-like

wingtips tapping

A beat with which the fear

Had nothing to do

The shadows are getting longer

So are the days—a cat stretching on the sill

Black hair glinting brown in sudden sunshine

Thinking: we are not our tragedies, an emergency

Is a collision with a doorframe

Walk through

True of heart and best foot forward

Don’t worry; you are the hero

Of this story

I packed a bag, essentials

Waxy fingertips and worn canvas

All the things that once made up a life

I could count on, down from five

Until zero

Coffeemaker gurgles and spits

Grounds and grit, a point of completed pattern

In static motion and slices of pie

Turns out, heaven was at capacity

So I went on home

Here is something that’s true:

The happy ending never comes

In the middle of the story

Slow down, listen between the stations

And stops

Forget the jagged pieces fitting together

You’re already here.

This poem inspired by the work of Buddy Wakefield.

NaPoWriMo Day 24: American Sentences

On the Way to School

She ran into my car! The side mirror—no, I didn’t move an inch!

Laying in Bed on a Stormy Night After Taking Out the Recycling

As the wind picks up, I can hear bottles and cans making their escape.

Outside Padelford Hall

Vegan power! His shirt proclaims, as he smokes, huddled against the rain.

Secret Admirer

A Valentine’s Day surprise at my front door; the letter reads “Love you, Mom”.

So I just learned about this poetic form called the American sentence and I decided to try it out. It's a bit of a play on the haiku form, with 17 syllables, but it's done as just one line instead of the 5-7-5 form of a haiku. It's fun! Read more about it here.