I’ve Made Some Lists and Lost Them Thrice (at the very least)

not-quite Journaling, 63

Out of autumn’s bones, she springs
gloriosa--a warming rebellion
for the Winter Solstice.

12/21/2023: I know this gloriosa daisy will be dead rather soon, but for right now… “It’s alive!!!” I hope the Winter Solstice added a bit (or a lot) of warmth and liveliness to your day--goodness knows the whole world can use some bright.

 

When life breaks,
I stitch stories to whole
my pieces together.

12/24/2023: Do you have a piece of writing or art you go back to again and again… when life’s kicks get too brutal? Well, this is mine. I haven’t written a new story or added any chapter to my existing work in some time. I’m starting to feel the lack. I haven’t been slacking, just tired and nauseated and bleeding and growling at a headache that refuses to let me go. I will see my doctors in a couple of days, tests have been scheduled, and just thinking about all the time I might (will?) be spending at the hospital increases my exhaustion. I’m going to write myself a story to relax to; something dark and delicious sprinkled with red and black, gardens and skulls, love and defiance, books and hammers--all my favorite things. 

I
can’t be
all I was,
but I will reclaim
some.

12/31/2023: My goal for 2024 is to accomplish the goals I set in 2023, which I should have completed in 2022, because I made a promise in 2021, which I planned in 2020, from a list I started in 2019…

All right, the truth is that I’ve no idea what I did with any of those lists. I can’t even remember which goals got done and which didn’t. So, I’ll make it easier for myself, in 2024, and keep my goals list short and doable: I Will Reclaim Where I Can and Adapt Where I Cannot. More on this in future posts. Right now, I wish, I wish, I wish that the coming year is a bit kinder to you, to me, and to the whole wide world.

 Also, I might’ve paraphrased the whole goals bit from a meme by an unknown author.

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #108: Beginning.

Of Modesty Being Knocked Senseless by Self-Love

She loves red and black
and impossible odds.

She delights in the dark moon,
in dirt, summer rain, winter
storms, in well spelled ink.

She reveres her brain,
the works of her tongue,
and is proud of every story
life has scarred on her skin.

When she looks in the mirror,
I look back and shout-whisper,
“You are glorious!”

photo by Dekler Ph, on Unsplash

Because humility is overrated: if you love you, tell you about it every chance you get.

 - for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #107: You Did It!

Of Books and Blooms

not-quite Journaling, 62

My autumns are wild
magic, uncanny prose
and storms,
storms of dark poetry.

11/21/2023: Chilly fall(ing) months are for delighting in hot coffee and creepy bits by some of my favorite word weavers--Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Poppy Z. Brite… And I just picked up “Monstrosity”, a short story collection by Laura Diaz de Arce. I was seduced by the cover… 😏📚

 

11/28/2023: One of my radiation therapists traveled to the Dominican Republic (the island of my birth) and brought me back an avocado the size of my head. Fine, I might be exaggerating--I have an enormous skull--still, the thing was huge. I planted the seed. And I’ve been harvesting (and eating) the leaves--which happen to be yummy (and grow as ginormous as the seed that sprouted them).  Click HERE for photos of the growing process.

 

12/1/2023: If the sight of my cactus’s growing erections didn’t make you chuckle or giggle a bit, then your sense of humor is a lot more grownup than mine--which doesn’t say much, so stop gloating--my sense of humor has been stuck at the hormonal teenage phase for a few decades.

 

When the universe told my kabocha squash soup that she could be whatever she wanted, she bloomed nuttily. 🤭

 Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #106: Seasonal Readings.

Loss Is Loss

This senryu was my response to someone who asked, “Who do you stand with [on the Israel-Hamas conflict]?” War is a terrible thing. I’ll always hurt for innocent lives crushed because they couldn’t get away fast enough. Soldiers sort of know what to expect, when they go to war. But noncombatants caught in middle--women, men, children…--they didn’t sign up for all the dying. I stand with them. 💔

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #104: Small Kindnesses.

Words and Feels

not-quite Journaling, 61

 There is power in pink
blooms, in scars embraced,
in mind and flesh
refusing
to give up the fight
for life.

10/18/2023: If you haven’t had a mammogram, a breast exam performed by a doctor, or your breast self-examinations aren’t particularly regular, then today is the day to correct such a serious oversight. Wear pink while you’re at it, so that others might be reminded too. ( . ) /

P.S. Someone told me that “a good soul doesn’t have time to worry about [her] individual problems, when an entire people face war and worse.” At first, I wanted to kick the speaker in the teeth. Now that my mind is calmer, I’ll just say that the world and all its big problems might not mean much if we’re dead--breast cancer doesn’t wait until we’re ready for it.

 

10/31/2023: My favorite last minute Halloween costumes, from some years ago. My Piano Man was a Chick Magnet, but I can’t remember what I was… Bloody Hammered? 🤔 I’m sure it was completely obvious at the time.

 

11/3/2023: Because, every so often, we (all right, me) can use a little reminder.

 

11/7/2023: “Every day is Halloween, isn’t it? For some of us.” Well, of course, señor Burton, even for this lily. Doesn’t she look like she’s holding on to the best of October? Or, perhaps, I’m just projecting.

 

11/11/2023: In response to the one who asked, “What terrifies you?”

 

Be love: devastating and wonderful.

 

11/17/2023: I love fairy tales and all kinds of tales, where people who are being oppressed fight as hard as they can… and get out from under their tormenter’s boot. I love them even better, when they do some kicking back. What can I say? I might be a wee bit adversarial. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #103: Life Is a Fairy Tale.

 

Love Never Dies

My words taste of you,
singing your scent into my dreams
until my all is you and me

again.

Last spring, I rained
morning after morning…
and at night

summer scorched your absence
into my skin.

I await the fall,
when October thins
all barriers,
and you can feel me, still

loving you through the veil.

 

“Til Death We Do Part”, by Michelle Kennedy

 - written for anyone whose love was claimed by death too soon. On Halloween, the veil between life and death is at its thinnest. So, reach out… remind them that your love will never die.

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #100: El Día de Muertos.