the (non) master of my own (sham) destiny

Yeah so this ought to be interesting. I don't even have any ideas right now but I know I'm headed for personal turmoil at a million miles an hour, so let's do this.

Reference for self if I want to play with form: http://shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/types.html

1. The Spring Disguise

The landscape is tended carefully around here,
filled with rainstorm-fueled grass
and trees with rainbow blossoms,
releasing enough pollen to coat
the city three times over.

If you let the pink and orange flowers catch
your eyes, you almost won't see
the concrete brick metal glass
that holds the thousand failed experiments
of your dreams.

TW: refers to murder and mental illness.

Spoiler

2. the result of watching too many true crime shows

sometimes, i wonder what would happen
if my story ended early,
if someone sent me into death's embrace
too soon
and left my body in the forest
to be found by some innocent hikers.

on one hand,
i am female, young, white, and middle class--
the model victim
for a dragged-out dateline story
and endless calls for justice.

on the other,
i am ugly, inside and out.
no one will say enough nice lies for the reporter
and no one wants to see my face on their screen.

besides, i am crazy enough
that my murderer could always say
she went off her meds
and did it herself
and who wouldn't believe him?

3. rooftop knockings

when she was little,
she swore she heard the footsteps
of reindeer above her head
on Christmas Eve.

now she misses the days
when she could believe in herself
as easily as she did
the errant sounds above her head.

4. dissociation

she found a sliver of ecstasy
somewhere between
the dreams already forgotten
and the morning she longed to ignore.

this is what heaven must feel like,
and if not, i do not wish to go
she thought as she fought
the day dislodging her
from a state she never wished to wake from.

5. july

i am lost on the edge of a memory,
my wet toes clinging to the granite
as i try not to remember the fear,

only the way my skin danced
against the wind
in anticipation of the plunge
into lake superior.

oh, to live those days again,
when i only had to leap
and never worried
about the climb back up.

6. legacy

only the trees remember now
when these asphalt arteries were clogged
with metal and rubber and honking horns,
back when the shouting beasts
believed the fossils of the dead
were theirs to burn.

only the trees remember the storms,
when winter slipped away
and water raged onto the roadways.
whimpering, the shouting beasts
ran to higher ground, praying it would save them.

their echoes remain
in concrete and steel,
bones and bricks
and plastic and glass.

they decay over decades
as the rain keeps falling
and swamps and grasses and forests
reclaim their rightful crown.

only the trees remember
when they almost lost the earth.

I started messing around again with poetry apps that I downloaded like what, three years ago now? For that awesome poetry app article I never finished? Yeah well anyway the fridge poems app is fun.

8. the rain in spain does not fall mainly on the plain

it fell, like me, on the northern coast,
i remember running drunk through the storm,
grasping on to anyone i recognized,
wishing you were there.

i still remember shoving past bodies
on the dance floor, into the arms of someone
i never wanted.

now i sit alone, in my apartment,
sipping chocolate milk and watching the lightning,
still wishing the thunder
could take those memories away.

Decided to look into poetry apps again and I found this fun new one that basically combines predictive text with a simple writing app. I created two poems from this.

Using the same app.

From the Imagery Workshop. Thanks to @PenguinAttack and @Audy for suggestions.

11. The Last Meal

The last time she saw him
was to sign crisp white papers
with hard black letters
that promised to keep him
a football field away.

It ended on the winter night he came home late,
bringing in a fresh order of Domino's
that made apartment smell
of melted dairy and pepperoni.

Turn down that damn yelling!
He shouted as she escaped into
the Real Housewives of somewhere.

She took a slice,
letting lukewarm cheese
and mildly flavorful pig guts
clog her throat.
He talked.
She turned up the volume.

I said turn it down!
Her stomach jabbed into the table
and she fell back against the wall.

Never again, she thought,
and she meant it this time.

Now alone, she sighs into the couch,
letting dark chocolate dissolve on her tongue
and she smiles and turns off the TV.

Another creation from the app.

Another app creation. I like the second stanza mostly.

EDIT: this is me trying to make this a real poem. Let's see what happens.

my spirit once flew with the angels
as i rode the horses of byzantium,
filling my heart with the sweet wine
of conquest.

then he tyrannized my thoughts
with his mixture of desire and despair,
bringing me to my knees.

my world is long gone now--
there is only him.

This ones from the Verser app