writelikefools-2022

[writelikefools-2022]

the poem i never wanted to write - scott parkinson - day 30

it puts me in that chill wind again amid stone and grass and dying light, little suspecting the wall of refutation my arguments would run against, rules of a game always set by you, sex as something negotiated on terms amenable only to yourself, contempt that weighs so heavy in the corners of your eyes, disdain that’s always been within the gutters of your smile, even in the moments of our greatest bliss. it’s not a poem for dwelling on the ways i wish i’d taken better care of you so let me say i wish you’d taken better care of me. i wish you’d known this much at least, because you were always very good at knowing things i didn’t, i wish you’d known i don't believe there’s anyone can love me if i’m not extraordinary.

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter

[writelikefools-2022]

things I won’t know in the next pandemic - scott parkinson - day 29

the contemplation of your face through math the welcome text the late sun splash of our shared ocean the great green canopy of our ascent the rutting groove of our desire the dark path back to the worst place in me where my least love resides a plant curling browning leaves that fall each day I don’t get what I want each day the orbit of your sun turns more and more away from me your eyes at last the most Siberian day of January i won’t be ignorant of the looser knots around conviction around my own yes around mistaking your own maybe around the fantasies of that young boy that live within the very seams and patches of my want i won’t actually live or die by the lack or by the having of any attention from you whatsoever in fact  (and this is still the hardest part) i won’t know you at all

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter #pandemic

[writelikefools-2022]

inauthenticity, or the recipe for rejection - scott parkinson - day 28

if i were to somehow reveal at long last what i want or who i am (as if I knew!) would you see me? or if I were to reveal myself at long last would I just give you the box you’re looking for to put me in?

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter

[writelikefools-2022]

#VanGoghLife - Scott Parkinson - day 27

How was that taste of paint Washed down with turpentine Insoluble molecules of color Dissolving into blood Salivary cerulean salvation Electrically electrolytic eucalyptus Descending dandelion dreams Of vomiting verdigris Media merged with Master A momentary mad longing For their coalescence  Or maybe their extinction I don’t want to overstep or Romanticize your illness That’s so last century As the kids once said But if I had to be born Under this miserable star The least gift god might bestow Is genius

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter #vincent van gogh #VanGoghLife #van gogh

[writelikefools-2022]

east of eastgate - elsa k - day 27

drove downtown this morning instead of taking the bus because these pills cause constipationand all these laxatives i’ve taken, couldn’t walk to the station without shitting my jeans took 2 hours to get 2 miles i screamed off the bridge with my dislocated jaw like i used to, east of Eastgate over a rubber tired river bed straightened my collar and asked a woman to please rub her swab all over my face, make sure she wiggles it well looking out the same windows, trying to find something new to notice hospitals, hospitals, hospitals still allergic to the bees i want to hold, so i drop honey on the ground and run still unsure of how we’ll make rent while my jaw is wired shut and my girl’s mind is still overseas, battling existential crises    and my mom’s mind is still crawling through coal caves watching my dad play himself in chess on a raised porch with no stairs, had to jump up just to walk in, like she used to, east of Hazard but she’s just still living in that black lung, looking out on the future like it’s a tortured past and me, i guess i’m still just some soot siphoned from a milk jug of moonshine

i was born burnt up looking for exit signs

#napowrimo #elsa k #elsa

[writelikefools-2022]

America Works for Almost No One - Scott Parkinson - day 26

Hard as we may work for her, America works for almost no one. Her minimum wage, unconscionable rents, and eight dollar lattes, her millions starving, pockets empty, no consent given for their birth, while Citizen Musk is granted all permission to buy speech itself. Black homeless vet sings “God Bless the Child” on my train, a soul-deep tenor; old beady white man, double-masked and plastic-gloved, covers both his ears. As sure as there's art born of pain and strife, and sure as those won’t hear it, them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose. Who’ll bless the child that’s got none?

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter #citizen musk #elon musk

[writelikefools-2022]

Crumbling Walls - John Rieman-Klingler - day 25

Walls are crumbling around me. Some I built Some I inherited and fortified The light of truth peaking through the cracks liberating and terrifying. What more will I have to protect me from its rays? The truth hurts and the truth will set me free. Every trigger is a knock on a wall I’m still maintaining hiding behind still scared of freedom. Only my body my healed and healing foundation can tolerate the light. My mind, the architect, can only design more structures

#napowrimo #john rieman-klingler #john klingler

[writelikefools-2022]

I Mean Well Because (Maybe) Love - Scott Parkinson - day 25

At times it’s so hard To separate illness From idiosyncrasy Or maybe even try I mean Maybe you’re right And there’s no point at all And with no guarantee Why do anything Well Maybe I’m losing words Or haven’t big enough thoughts To counterpoint your own But I’ll try Because What else can I think But that better than the void Is to face it hand in mine Maybe Love

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter

[writelikefools-2022]

One Million Leaves on One Million Branches - David Joseph Ostrowski - day 25

one million leaves on one million branches turning upwards for the sun saturated rain looking like life looking like disaster coming from the end and parting new water airplane won’t you pass overhead give new direction make big billowing sound sounds like lost opening theme doesn’t look like letters looks like the crucifixion has a wholeass day ahead of it with peanuts and maybe a complementary drink or two  with dynamite paralysis a storm forms overhead they fly headlong into an angry cloud

#napowrimo #david joseph ostrowski

[writelikefools-2022]

A Little Weather - David Joseph Ostrowski - day 24

in the evening there’s a rain coming on and in the nighttime a moon obscured i can’t see past the clouds when we’re fighting can’t see the future when we disagree in the morning what if there’s no sun in the morning the moon is gone i don’t need you but you’re a limb i like always opposable but still at my side would you help me feel around in the dark would you help me learn to listen if i cut you off i might as well bleed out i’ve got this other one but i’d like two tried to read between the lines but i’m projecting tried to live right but who am i protecting the world is a stone and it is burning feel like the new kid on the factory line will anyone tell me what this button is for does anyone know what this button is for

#napowrimo #david joseph ostrowski

[writelikefools-2022]

When Doves Fly - Scott Parkinson - day 24

As if expecting a reward I used to dance as though everyone watched Mother father sister teachers bullies lovers employers potential husbands As though I were an imposter or maybe an interloper who didn’t belong I did step-touches in my rejection pivot turns in my cerebrum chassés of shame As if there weren’t all the pain the dance might fly me from I moved so Dancing everywhere except inside my body, where all the answers lie And as I saw this on the floor today my younger limbs and mind so much at odds there was only one thing to do one thing the rhythm begged me to So I forgave

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter

[writelikefools-2022]

from an afternoon when i still had a body - elsa k - day 24

how is it that i go from my pelvis to my nose as a seamless whole after all the dissections i’ve borne in this skin have i pierced the veil is this my second chance there i lay, the magna torso in the agony of angels gaping up from a rapidly rising tide the gaze of many weaponed cherubim like an aphotic halo strung around my eye and to the roaring of a lion shrouded in sterile pea green i lived and died and lived again countless, boundless so my friend tell me how i have a body tell me how i still have a body

#napowrimo #elsa #elsa k

[writelikefools-2022]

Getting In with the Big Guns - David Joseph Ostrowski - day 23

Revenant on the skin to be fair to when all that crashes is near. Little portfolios of porcelain giving up my head to my hands and changing their route to my mind. Lest I conceive of a new known philosophy, whether or not I wanted to.  The freezing rain colliding hot with the blacktop, ketchuping the room of going on. Will there be delights?  Will there be miracles?  Will there be a house on the beach like a Black Mirror lesbian time warp story?  Will I  have a ranger and a bard and some weird being of being gone? There are no explanations for disappearance. There are no novels to explain end of life. All the while trying to appease the say-sos in the powdery glass chambers, looking up from the bottom at them, trying to signify the birth of the spiritual feel-good energy.  Like little warbling bird fears, letting my ghosted image circulate the many hazards and killing the ward.

#napowrimo #david joseph ostrowski

[writelikefools-2022]

Rewriting algorithms - John Rieman-Klingler - day 23

We’re born with algorithms that serve as our chains inherited from ancestral pains some get rewritten in our Mom’s sweet embrace in our Dad’s smiling face loosening their hold on our fate so we can then more ably choose our own way. Others get rewired in crippling ways neurons start to fire when we feel we’re unsafe that first kid on the playground that laughed at our weight. Adolescence was hard I’ve so much to unlearn always on guard bracing for the next burn, which in turn I would turn on my brothers, who are left scarred because processing pain at that age is out of the cards at least in a system where stuffing pain is rewarded. Now as adults all we can do’s reprogram the default and type in something new.

#napowrimo #john rieman-klingler #john klingler

[writelikefools-2022]

Leave No Trace - scott parkinson - day 23

A phantom, I drift.  Streets on which I wish I lived, Pretend it’s my life.

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter

[writelikefools-2022]

Perkin’s Restaurant - David Joseph Ostrowski - day 22

metals all solid taste in a mouth of fresh blanket sheen and warmth with high eclectic sound going off and dry gem and fluent golden upstate and miraculous mood but all the dragging feet here and there and all the helix girlfriends and all the makings of a several course meal and plus i am a worknorse to make the flower and oral fun blissful like a bug 

#napowrimo #david joseph ostrowski

[writelikefools-2022]

i never wanted to be me - scott parkinson - day 22

I spoke that truth the other day, the one I’ve always known but never said. Now, like someone brandishing a blade or boiling rabbits on the kitchen stove, it will not be ignored. I find these first warm days of spring unbearable before enough of them become routine. Half the day gone before I’ve made a move, and those I have are ones of least resistance. How do I say yes to a world that’s never told me anything but no? Fell asleep over the highway beneath the abbey’s long shadows, sunlight a heavy breath upon my skin, reflecting on the miracles and miseries of being so much older than a younger me could ever have conceived. Is there a time within the memory of myself I haven’t had to fear before I spoke? Oh sure, the things you fear to say may change, but fear itself is always there. I hear it as I drift away beneath the chittering altos and sopranos floating on the wind, the picnic blanket just uphill, their very laughter a reproach. What freedom might there be in fearlessness and will I ever know it? Perhaps I fall in love with younger men that I might heal a younger me and fall in love with him. But in the end the sun comes down, and the day you’re longing for, the one that keeps you from the day you’re in, it still comes to an end

#napowrimo #scott parkinson #uncle scooter