awyldepoetry

[awyldepoetry]

that Spring

My gentle dog turned thirteen that Spring, I'd listen extra carefully to his exhales as he'd doze; holding onto him, memorizing what I still held we sat yearning by the sea on pebble beaches skipping stones, a day's drive from anywhere we'd ever been you pronouncing that word like it rhymes with between me writing strings of word and phrase to amuse you picking wild camas for the coffee table, I stitched a patch into each armpit of your favorite shirt

It was the year Thetis lake had that big algae bloom the year we laid the bedrock that became the path that marked the way, that led us here and we were young, wandering, wild even as we were bathed in bewilderment at the ferocity of it all I knew enough to hold him closer, listen closer to his sighs knew enough to leave worries unstirred, admire instead I didn't know how, but knew I'd get here, a single stem of skullcap illuminating my morning peaceful, still, reflecting on that Spring my gentle dog turned thirteen

-

A. Wylde

April 20th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 21/30

[awyldepoetry]

A Lover, a hue

Golden, paring back the edge to see if it's only a leaf, and you're pure all the way to the center; maybe most wouldn't recognize such a precious metal, unrefined

Perhaps eggshell, a silence in your strength, backlit by sunlight, crystalline warms the room; fragile, yes, tender but staunch, as if any moment you'll disembark

Daffodil, such a brilliance, not unaware of, but unmoved by the darkness; as though your morning birthright is the bright eye full of radiant shine, you will it

-

A. Wylde

April 20th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 20/30

#poems #poetry #poem #napowrimo #national poetry writing month #napowrimo24 #a wylde #atlas wylde #awyldepoetry #spilled ink

[awyldepoetry]

Lunacy

Whatever your torment, however you bleed if you bellow, wail, curse or threaten whatever toxin your anger engenders whatever demon takes root in your gut whatever your torment, however you bleed you cannot aggrieve the fair moon

-

A. Wylde

April 20th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 19/30

#poems #poetry #poem #napowrimo #national poetry writing month #napowrimo24 #a wylde #atlas wylde #awyldepoetry #spilled ink

[awyldepoetry]

A Soundtrack

There are two copies of my favorite CD, the byproduct of my parents mixing their collections just like me I put them next to each other in the 5-CD changer, an early effort at the circles, repetition I will come to need when I read scary stories of horrors that happen to other little girls I picture them in that little back bedroom here, I don't know why I do that I love green beans and hate the taste of antibiotics, and I keep getting sick, keep needing the pale pink, disagreeable I drag my stuffed rabbit by one ear up the three stairs split-level, divided, a place I only go back in dark dreams I open the door, my rabbit still in tow, looking out at the lawn where I guess all the pictures would eventually be laid to rest thrown in spite, melted snow, ruined, lost I don't remember much, but I do feel it I remember two copies of my favorite CD in the 5-CD changer playing back to back, a soundtrack and when that player eventually swallowed both copies, scratched them irreparable, swallowed my safety I don't remember much, but I do feel it a belly full of horrors, a terrible, terrible unease

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A. Wylde

April 18th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 18/30

#poem #poetry #national poetry writing month #napowrimo24 #atlas wylde #a wylde #awyldepoetry #napowrimo #spilled ink

[awyldepoetry]

What comes next

In the absence of a plumbers fair wage, I found a bucket to sit underneath catching the drops like silent stifled tears as they runoff from the overflow of my sink We only notice the magic of plumbing when there is a leak only notice it again when the bucket is full, it too overflowing under the weight, unnoticed as our grief

There are not enough hours in my lilac year, or years in my lavender life to pull petals for all the fallen stars we collectively count from dark skies Our cries, our pleading, our "it doesn't have to be like this," each a single drop Our whole, unholy loss

Every classroom an enclosure of untamed rage every bathroom a battlefield, and our children are so tired they need rest We fire and howl for them, our challengers towering stand few but unyielding on imposing steps, each of us with a bucket under the sink at home and another one, here, in our chests, and I don't know, I don't know! It hurts and I don't know what is next all I know is we were too late for Nex

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A. Wylde

April 17th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 17/30 (on death of Nex Benedict 2024)

#poem #poetry #grief #nonbinary #nex benedict #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month

[awyldepoetry]

Supposing

Supposing we were both on this plane, the astral mystery of being supposing it was just us, too, and that's all we both knew supposing it was daylight, twilight, our eyes playing tricks supposing yesterday was over, forever, and tomorrow was promising supposing we opened our eyes again, miraculous supposing there was nothing stopping us to note supposing, maybe, that we were wholly ourselves and entirely free supposing all of that, would you linger on my kiss every morning? supposing our lives were long, uninhibited, resilient supposing we'd win and we'd lose, would you share it all? supposing you picked today, and again tomorrow, and each morning, knowing today what you know and supposing it was all true, supposing it was, supposing it was all true, would you?

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A. Wylde

April 14th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 16/30 (Day Fourteen Prompt)

#poem #poetry #national poetry writing month #napowrimo #napowrimo24

[awyldepoetry]

Letter to a Lover

Tongue still tasting tartly of the postage stamp, the tiny envelope now sealed, smeared, partly damp west coast rainy season wrapping us in petrichor, earthy the soft bubble of the kettle promising warmth, mercy a hope the size of a pebble in my throat, notes to savor it's the unruly notion, the untamed hope, forbidden flavors if truly my intentions were laid bare, I'd be already offshore I'm the playwright at the gunfight, no knife, I came to explore sneaking out to the mailbox, lest I lose my own right to choose small stones underfoot, she'll smell the rain on me, confused could I return to the corporate, the stale, the empty? could I unpaint my self-portrait, regress, rescind? I watch her, spoon in the mixture, stirring the batter the post man stops by, and she knows somehow I watch her body with the knowledge watch her, shatter

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A. Wylde

April 14th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 15/30 (Day Thirteen Prompt)

#poem #poetry #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month

[awyldepoetry]

On chances

tell me your stars while I spin my thoughts swirling I can keep a secret if I try and you, your choice is cast in Sterling locket around your neck is a token, a tale you know where I know you belong

break their hearts while I kill all my darlings you can forge a dawn if you dare and I, I have an affinity for startings scars all across my chest are trial, warning I know what you know I possess

cut the tube, silver dressing, intervening it's Spring now, but your heart's in July pull the rug, touch the sky, screaming! trace faith, stretch your wings, we can fly we know what we know, you and I

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A. Wylde

April 14th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 14/30

#napowrimo24

[awyldepoetry]

The gaping

There are two kinds of healing at least one in which you heal around the foreign object grow back skin where previously there was only flesh a healing in contact with the source of your pain a piercing the formation of something new entirely wrapped together and indistinguishable from something that used to be some other way

The other is the gaping, you know it well the gaping the absolute horror, cover your children's eyes a vacancy left behind by a pain you're quite accustomed to the way the edges don't just ache for the blade but beg, eery screams audible from mile away the gaping the endless fingertips tracing empty ragged walls

Drowning in the sounds made by the gaping, I'm tempted to run to the edge of forever, the wishing for forevers fighting instinct, the more I am willing to stand at the gaping edge the more tenderly I view the wound the more I recognize in myself the tear and the longer I can bear the gaping the more clearly I can see the gap

Taste of importance, not in seeking always to press fingerprints to the bleeding hoping the skin will regrow hoping beyond hope that this becomes new the flavor of wisdom instead is in noticing what this, particular healing needs precise, attentive concern not a rightness, a prescription, a comparison an allowance, tension softened, a surrender a release

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A. Wylde

April 14th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 13/30

#napowrimo24

[awyldepoetry]

Out there

Slow, patient and rhythmic even predictable but don't act too small not small enough to become encircled

Leave the crumbs, don't bother to run but don't stray too far there's nothing else out there

Quick, agile and fearless even foolhardy but try, you can try again never a feast without the hunting

Let them tire, don't covet the chase but do more than evade there's something more out there

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A. Wylde

April 12th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 12/30

#napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #poetry #poem #a wylde #atlas wylde #awyldepoetry

[awyldepoetry]

Ode to my old sweatshirt

Vividly, even recklessly you dazzle the bees would think you Meadowsweet you sketch and render, portray me in soft light engender a memory of me steady, complete

And I enjoy you so gingerly, but often you hold me as your edges unravel and even as I love you, so do I break you down it's a mortal path we jointly travel

There, a scrape in your benevolent elbow, and what a mighty brave face for me you wear I'll spent my Saturdays darning on the loom your comfort teaches me the tools for repair

And in your effervescence I am seen, even known a character beloved, whose old sweater characterizes paint me a Dahlia, Azalea; your keen glow even the sullen storm cloud in me it well disguises

We both know this won't last forever, and yet we cling to Loving Spring anew together again making promises we can't bear to keep smarting at impermanence, mending fraying ends

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A. Wylde

April 12th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 11/30

#poem #poetry #national poetry writing month #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #spilled ink #a wylde #atlas wylde #awyldepoetry

[awyldepoetry]

Unaware

I take something from the pulling, yearning revel in the tacitly moving toward and unaware, you cannot reciprocate But you’re no longer unaware

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A. Wylde

April 10th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 10/30

#poem #poetry #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #a wylde

[awyldepoetry]

Small and fragile things

Bitter black sips with Sara, 35 years my senior, she tells me about the building she bought back in Winnipeg in the 80s five lesbians in an old fire station, selling tickets to dances every weekend to make the rent and years later on the island, volunteering in the women's book store, the titles were so many she'd never seen how Never Again means handwritten letters to her representatives even now, a single handwritten letter is worth 1,000 emails, she tells me and maybe I will write her letters now, grateful to meet one who helped pave my way

Foamy cappuccino in the capital, stories from the homeland it's all mother tongue, bachata, the price of flour and rum my grandmother, hands with the same knots as mine, veins and tendons raised to the touch, and mine are still taking their time she tells me how she left, alone at seventeen in the middle of her engineering exam, just stopped, just picked up, just left to become free and how she sees that same searching, that same seeking, needing the freedom leading me

Water on the sidewalk outside of the bar the university students are in line still trying to get in, I meet young Ayla, her confidence reminds me of the version of myself that hadn't yet been told what to cut out to be allowed to fit in she studies music and climate science, remarks on the unlikely pair but I see it, I see how they mesh both ripping at the edges to make another living thing hold their truth, purpose, both begging for reality to be allowed in through the cracks underneath the door we don't recognize each other, don't need to and in a way that's the liberation

Decaf only these days, Alvin gives me a funny look when I ask for it in the morning at the donut shop We ride in the truck he's maybe driven all his life, and it looks it He looks at me funny when I order the non-alcoholic beer at the bar, too, but he still tells me how he spent his son's 21st birthday with him in a helicopter in Las Vegas Tells me about the advice he gave his young niece at her grandparents house, that someone who doesn't like her is none of her business, and not her problem

and I have a niece now, too I am here and alive, my two feet on the ground I am breathing the same air as these strange and miraculous beings sharing these moments, so tender and brief I am me, with all my own stories, and many to write I am me, I have a niece and aren’t we all such small, and fragile things

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A. Wylde

April 10th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 09/30

#poem #poetry #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #a wylde #awyldepoetry #atlas wylde

[awyldepoetry]

Harmony

You're written into the surface of my insides like so many lines cut into the records we loved like so many lines scrawled onto napkins and into pocketbooks such that each note enters and reverberates down I used to resonate like crystal under your fingertips you made me hate the sensation even as you taught me how to feel it

I'm expanded, the final layer of packaging peeled away what's left is raw, exposed like fresh skin under a healing tear my universe amplified in strings, in tones and syllables I learned to find the sound of you anywhere, I'd hear your song so long after you'd gone you made me soundproof, stonemason even as your emptiness rang out

I suppose I expected the stone wall to be permanent let rest for decades, never once glanced back and I didn't have time to start noticing the cracks only one day I did notice--a subtle melody in the air memory, where suddenly there was a peephole eyes pressed stoic to the cold grey even as you were there, peeping back

I tried to lose you by losing the parts of me you'd seen forgetting all the self I discovered with your help as though the way you ripped from me took with you everything attached I tried keeping you out, burning you down it worked silently for so long, until something I didn't notice I'd long been missing stood peeping lyrics in whispers, creeping back in

So I put my fingers into that tiny space, pulled out the rubble I could, inhaled deep, held the smell in my lungs, felt how it found its place at once came back with power tools, you and I each removing pebbles, notes, rocks, boulders and sounds from our sides and what I heard was a score for the life I had grown into and what I saw in the doorway was something I knew something I didn't know how to hold, or to want, or to need but it was something that had to be freed

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A. Wylde

April 9th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 08/30

#napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #poetry #poem #a wylde #atlas wylde #awyldepoetry

[awyldepoetry]

The child, the stream, and the Great Plains

Serenity, to the quiet child is waking slowly to Sunday morning song golden rays streaming in the window country music and cleaning sounds swimming in softly under the door, wrapped snug

Serenity, to the stream is triumphant; trickling onward and back unto tiny oxbows wriggling into lakes their own an eternity of design, manifesting in the simple downward movement of all things

Serenity, to the great plains is summers exploding into sunflowers to calm the long, windy winter chill chirping, crickets, the way that life crawls anew from every warm hollow, for another chance at being

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A. Wylde

April 7th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 07/10 (Day Five Prompt)

#poetry #poem #napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #a wylde #atlas wylde

[awyldepoetry]

Under the current

Under the current of the unremitting quest a whisper for less

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A. Wylde

April 6th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 06/30

#napowrimo #national poetry writing month #napowrimo24 #poem #poetry #a wylde #atlas wylde

[awyldepoetry]

before I leap

If it's ever truly too much, I suspect you won't know where to find me there's nothing more important in the overwhelm than making sure the fires takes the house I don't know how to hold it all, in front of you but I know how to silently slip out the open back door If it's ever truly more than I can take, it feels so obvious to dematerialize, leave nothing behind me And even when my mind is catastrophizing, dreaming up the end of times, the disappearing act, somewhere, caught in my throat crouched in the faceless woodland I try to swallow to knowledge of you missing me and I look, just once, before I leap

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A. Wylde

April 5th, 2024 NaPoWriMo 05/30

#napowrimo #napowrimo24 #national poetry writing month #poem #poetry