Absence

A seed dropped by chance
inside a high-walled garden
became a tree
with impossibly deep roots
whose absence left a crater.

Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Song Choice: The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd

This poem was created for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Trees.

Punk Rock Angel

She was no one’s angel
but her own. In love
with loving and exploring
underappreciated beauty
with every one
of her senses.

She was a punk rock angel
too in love with this world
to be interested in (or wait for)
a monotone heaven.

So she made her own,
stuffed with all the delights
she loved best.

Her heaven had room
for both adventures and lipstick,
dark truths and real smiles,
fine china in a blanket fort,
Shakespeare and Bubblegum,

witchcraft and shenanigans.

Her heaven had room
for every last lover,
anyone who identified as a dreamer,

and me.

She danced every day of her life
in her homemade heaven.
Until she couldn’t.

I’d call her a liar
for promising me an after
(this time with English wells,

and tucked away tea houses),

but there was no sin in her heaven,
save being untrue to yourself.

So I forgive her last lie,
and hold on to the truth

of best friends forever
in a summer star land,
where punk rock angels play 

the most raucous of concerts.

And the cheese,

and the bread, 

and the dancing, 

and the sex
is so much better there
than the bland heaven
the world tried to threaten us with.

I always get misty watching this anime, but now the part where she makes her wish

to get her best friend back will make me weep too. Cat understood how much I loved it

and probably expected it would be the first thing I binged after she died.

Song Choices:  I Do What The Good Girls Don't by Elle King, and I Lived by One Republic

Liner Notes for This Groove: I lost one of my dearest friends in the world on Monday morning. She fought chronic illness for so long, but never let it dim her love of life. I'll miss you, Nekko-chan. 

Everyday

Everyday 

there’s a new blue sky
waiting for me
to disturb all the earth
thrown upon me
the day before,
and see if I’ll come dancing.

Everyday 

there's a new spark,

either hiding in the curl of a leaf

or out in plain sight

in the curve of my love's smile

strong enough 

to remind my heart what it's there for.

And all is made new again.

Taylor Van Riper on Unsplash

Song Choice: Brand New Day by Sting

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, Starting A New Relationship. You can start a new relationship with a day, right?

Hard Reset

I’m looking for a hard reset.
Silence. Enough
to allow my gunpowder emotions
time to settle down from their fine mist
and lay quietly
away from incendiary sparks.

I’m looking for space
where I don’t have to
MacGyver my emotional state
and self-suture the same old wounds.
One where I can really rest
and learn what healed skin looks like.

I want to find
what it feels like to know
an extended peace
in my battlefield brain,
so I can reclaim the salted earth
and put it to work
growing only the things I chose to plant.

Photo by Jaime Spaniol on Unsplash

Song Choice: 24/7 by Kehlani

Liner Notes for This Groove: This poem was created for the Weekly Scribblings prompt at Poets and Storytellers United: Wait for It. I may have twisted the line I chose to work with "I'm looking for a mind at work" as far as its limits could go.