I dream of a New York apartment. Ceiling-to-floor windows, a torrent of light. I can’t see anything in all this optimism. Can’t make outthe shape of my own demise anymore. Can’t think of a better way to die. My body dressesitself and clockworks its way to work and back.20,000 days to go before a final […]
Tag: poetry
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #109
Jericho Brown once said every metaphor is a vehicle and a tenor,bringing you somewhere you did not know to go. Looking out the window down sun-dressed boulevards, the radio a soft purras the sand comes into view,I find myself out there in the light. Here, I imagine building a home by my hands, plank by […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #107
For I I want, and I want. I have learnt of your body, and the way she co-exists with mine. My tongue, my pesky mind. My over eager hand, my overthink. Even now I dream of home ownership, and then some. Maybe marriage?Maybe a distant vision, like a neighbour’s cat clawing at a window.Or that […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #106
So it goes, most of the time; the page turns and withers away. Those dreamsI’ve brushed past in my youth – where did they go? Into the drawer of a dusty office, into somebody’s waiting hand. I have not written, truly, in months. Where did I keep the key, where did I fall from, where […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #105
Can’t draw ink from an empty well.Can’t speak when I mean nothing.Don’t, then. Eyes rolling like heads,teeth clenched shut like iron girders,I live through life, distant. The futureis already here. She takes up too much space and now I don’t know how to write anymore. Nothingflows when you’ve dug deep enough.It’s time to get your […]
Expression and Consequence – On Writing and Growth
I pen my thoughts about picking up writing, continuing to write from a place of vulnerability, and what ramifications it might have for my work as a writer, as well as its impact on my loved ones and I. I also think about a path forward, although I cannot guarantee that I can take it.
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #104
For I. Under the warm pillowy cover of night my hand stirs and reaches for yours. If we kept sleeping this way, limb to limb, our palms the interchange of our veins, our quiet thoughts; or the ones that scream at us every day, as we walk by doing nothing but existing; or thosethat bark […]
FOOTNOTES ON FILLING
After “footnotes on falling” by Joshua Ip. Written for the #StayHomeStayLit2020 campaign.
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #102
In recent months I have beenabandoned by sadness. Moreaccurately, I have left her behind. No more the plucking of leavesfrom her overgrown crown, herlaurel of memory. She would not let me go – a root, tangled aroundan arm. My fingers planted in the bark. As a trade, I had to cut off my tongue, toss […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #101
Door shut. Silent afternoon.Mother, couch. Phone, charging, candy crushing comic reading quiet waiting. One call. No answer.Two calls.No answer. Please, come, sit down. Rare visitor appears again.He wraps his handsaround fists.Bald brotherstanding unsteadyvoice trickling into phone. Answer muffled.Breakfast cold, voices unsteady,mother trickles within kitchen. Locked out. No context. I sit in silence. Shut afternoon.Quiet, rare.Couched […]