you smell like you want to be alone
like mildew and aching bones
like a child holding onto a basket of lies
disguised as paper butterflies
you sound like a winter day
like a bouquet of dreams faded away
like the flavor of dried roses and regrets
spiderwebs and fractured silhouettes
you look like a persistent itch
a half-written poem, an unfinished stich
the broken string of a violin
abandoned, never to be played again
you taste like a broken heart
a story that's finished before it can start
a bird with no feathers, a fly with no wings
a music box that has forgotten to sing
you feel like the color of mud
a crumpled up tissue, a withered bud
a waterfall falling into the void
a trembling whisper always paranoid
NaPoWriMo Day 11 Prompt: This prompt challenges you to play around with the idea of overheard language. First, take a look at Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "One Boy Told Me." It's delightfully quirky, and reads as a list, more or less, of things that she's heard the boy of the title – her son, perhaps? – say. Now, write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard that made you laugh, or something someone told you once that struck you as funny. If you can't think of anything, here's a few one-liners I picked out of the ever-fascinating-slash-horrifying archives of Overheard in New York.
• So I asked my priest, and he said "I think you should see other people."
• Don't say "no" to drugs. Say "no, thank you."
• You smell like you want to be alone.
• Oh hi! We were just speaking very poorly about you!
• I feel so elated! Wait…no, I mean, "violated."
No comments:
Post a Comment