wilting flowers watered with melted icicles

Goals:
Write 35-40 poems, at least 1 poem per day
Subscribe to peoples' threads
Comment on at least every other thread at least once
Read 150 poems, including other peoples' NaPo poems
Attend a poetry jam
Have fun reading and writing poetry!

previously on Ant's NaPos...
obsession inspired by wisps of real and imagined laughter - NaPo 2024
screams brewed in the mind's boiling cauldron - NaPoWeek 2024

0.5. (Pre-NaPo) and now i bring back september
1. into futures, out of ice, out of leaf piles, out of my past, out of guilt, out of bitterness, into saplings, into flowers
2. april's lament
3. fleeting
4. the chemist
5. messages to the sky
6. i leave splinters in my bones
7. before and after the fall (and everything in between)
8. perhaps antipholus sought the impossible
9. plucking the strings of gilded bracelets
10. in time
11. infinitesimal
12. existential haiku
13. because ants don’t have lungs, you silly girl (or the tale of my mini bathroom epiphany)
14. a seat at the table
15. it's a poem about flowers
16. an astronomical destiny
17. knowledge, in a place above or below us
18. picking roses
19. epitaph of former shells, part i
20. humans have always wanted to fly one day
21. when time frays like the fibers of twine
22. somewhere out there is our corner of the sky (show me a reason, i won't show you a rhyme)
23. untitled
24. beyond anything
25. where the storybook ends
26. swampiness
27. nothing between
28. between the branches
29. leafing through pages
30. mapping constellations from the sparks
[31. wilting flowers watered with melted icicles]

0.5. and now i bring back september (Pre-NaPo)

only traces of snow remain
behind on the ground, but
it is still cold.
the leaves that have been
pushed beneath the snow
remind me of who i used to be.

the wind freezing my ears
feels like a repeated phrase,
a familiar emotion,
words
left behind.

i step outside into
what looks like fall,
but is instead the seasons
taunting us.
i remember winter like a brief
melancholia-
and i now bring back september.
september, that felt like fresh ink,
september, that gave me hopeless ambitions,
september, that never felt real.

how can the trees be so bare
but the sky so clear and blue?
how can i feel so full without that feeling,
but so incomplete?
i fear only time knows
the true meaning of anything,
who i have been,
where i am going.
and since time has never been my ally,
then perhaps i don’t know.

~ april first, 2025 ~

1. into futures, out of ice, out of leaf piles, out of my past, out of guilt, out of bitterness, into saplings, into flowers

there is a part of myself i’ve left beneath
the autumn leaf piles; underneath
the sheets of ice and snow; un
earthed; re
surfacing.
perhaps she has returned now,
with the thawing ice,
as some sliver of intangible looming.

the one that pushed herself down
beneath the leaves when they shed from the trees.
(Not seen as a pretty background)
the one that has to prove she
was in pain, that she
was never meant to be
(included in the seasonal landscape)
(picked up to be glued in a scrapbook)
(gazed at to realize how unique leaves can be).
oh, how she simply curled herself up,
tucked in her limbs,
bit her own tongue,
(Waiting to receive pressure from all those above me),
(Waiting for a firm boot to stick in its toe and find me).

the one that shoved herself to the ground,
frozen solid, frost bitten toes.
(shoved under layers of snow,
under layers of shame and pretend,)
she poisoned herself with pity, and
grief, and
regret that cocooned within her
as the seasons had passed.
(the regret that iced my tears onto my pink cheeks.)
she craved the refresh wash of snow
so the cold would slip in the place of
warmth of the lost times.

so she watched the leaves tumble.
she watched the snow settle.
she watched the icicles shatter.
and now i watch shoots budding from the soil.
the taste of spring, of
growth, that i’ve always
cursed myself for not having.

growth.
a word we’ve accepted and adopted
as a part of nature, of life;
with change and seasons.
but i’ve always felt change but
never growth.

(Note: lines in parentheses are from past poems)

~ april second, 2025 ~

2. april’s lament

i don’t remember if
the trees were as
bare and dead
last april as they are
now.
spring has always seemed like solace,
a cradle, a tender sight
after the harsh cold winds that weave their way through
all living things.

i wonder why green can sprout from the soil,
pink and yellow petals can unravel, bleed
color into death,
when pebbles of snow still tumble from the sky,
scattering, streaking across the sky,
clinging onto the hope of winter.
why do the seasons hold on so tight to
their past? do they know it will
come again? that the snow will one day
sweep through the tree branches once again?
or are they fearful, or rather
prepared
for the chance that
that feeling will never return?

i think we all leave behind a part of ourselves
in each season, each color, each height of the sun;
and we let it nestle in our distant footprints,
and wait to find them once again,
in a place with bare branches, foreign
but so familiar.

and when spring comes, the feeling is
both fresh and quite known.
perhaps i’ve always counted on april
for spreading its presence and warmth.

Spoiler

@WeepingWisteria thank you so much!!!

~ april third, 2025 ~

3. fleeting

the last snow of the year is fleeting,
we never realize it is the
last breath of winter.
after all, why would we reminisce of
the present?
if the sky was too pained by the thought
of the snow’s absence for such a
long stretch of time,
would it not let the winter linger
for as long as it could?

perhaps that is why
the wind breathes so cold,
in a time so familiar as spring.
maybe the clouds
want to hold on to the last,
fleeting,
heartbeat of the frozen season.

maybe the seasons, too,
like us,
hold on to little things that
never last.

~ april fourth, 2025 ~

4. the chemist

liquid seeps through funnels,
chemicals drip from beakers.
hovering in the air is the sour smell
of acids and dust particles,
amaroidal and acrid.
the dim lights flicker to illuminate,
barely,
the synthesization of all things
natural and
synthetic.

my hands, my hands,
wrapped, shielded in plastic coverings,
pour solutions together,
mixing like marbled ink.
i take bits of movements from all those
above and below me,
stumbles, strong commands,
words i aspire to one day mutter,
conversations, expertly crafted and created,
affirmations to what should be correct and wrong.
stances, held hands, broken handshakes,
all fuse together to fabricate
(the perfect, correct formula).

and i gather what i discover is
the taste of true life,
blended, stirred into mixtures
of
humanity
in a
painting,
portrayed
by an
artist,
made up
of
brush strokes.

experimenting; testing; trials;
each forming of chemical bonds,
atoms holding each other together,
elements bonding, sharing.
i blend all the whirls and strings of color and noise
from everywhere,
from nowhere,
and twist it into my own reality.
perhaps writers tear pages from books
to write their own instruction manuals.
perhaps architects build skyscrapers
from the glass of others’ mirrors.
then perhaps i draft my words,
my steps, the volume of my voice,
on some pre-written formula of chemicals.

for what would a chemist ever create
if not with what has been already created by nature?
the dim lights flicker to
illuminate, barely,
the synthesization of
all things natural and
synthetic.

~ april fifth, 2025 ~

5. messages to the sky

Oh, tell the sun
not to shine today.
For perhaps, for once,
we can be spared of her sweltering rays.
And tell her to forgive me
for praising the night,
for some things are simply more luminous
when away from the light.
(oh childhood days, climbing, skipping, running in afternoon glow,
your absence left sore, red burns on my skin.
oh, please let the leaves thrive under your torch,
let the colors breathe back into our souls.
oh, give me back those half-blown dandelions and knotted grass,
and push away the epitaphs of the winter wind’s coming)

Oh, tell the moon
not to push and pull the tides this time.
Let sandcastles and sand skyscrapers stay longer,
and footprints on the beach be easier to find.
And tell her to stay full, or
in a slender crescent for a while,
so months may not feel like
time’s endless trial.
(and how i want to build sandcastles once again, without such fears
of collapse or scattered sunburns or exhaustion under the sun,
and how i want to frame the moon’s silvery shapes
in simple objects, go forward by her light.
and how i wish i’d never hoped as much for a blue moon
as much as any moon at all.)

Oh, tell the stars
not to scatter so far.
For their multitude of luminescence
only shows us how small we are.
And tell them to show us
how to draw constellations, navigate the sea;
perhaps guidance can illuminate the way,
and enlighten us on the things we cannot see.
(please, forgive me for drying up my words on wishes
to imagination, myths and fables we were told to lean on.
and please, let me look into your sky, not for a path or pictures,
but for light, for depth, for an understanding of what is beyond.
please, remind me how to stand under scattered lamps without
lighting my own match, with letting the sky simply be the light, simply)
Be.

~ april sixth, 2025 ~

6. i leave splinters in my bones

TW: death (Note: this poem is NOT implying suicide)

i carve melancholia out of my untainted skin;
some ideals i convince myself make me restless.
i let tears spill so i feel like i’m falling from someplace high,
and i grasp what i can from every surface on my way down,
screaming, breaking stone ledges and gargoyles.
i make bitter blotches of ink run down my hands, to the paper,
staining my sleeves, as i bring my inked hands to my face in horror.

what if i told you i was going to Die tomorrow?
would you press your fingertips into your temples and
cushion your face in your palms?
would you, too, cry tears of ink?

sometimes my presence fades like careless pencil drawings.
i don’t feel myself slinking into silence, but i know others do.
as clouds shift and tides push and pull,
i spend what thoughts and time and memory i have been given by
filling my head with clouds, soaking my hands in the waves,
dreaming and pondering the most of life’s unimportance.
i lift up my cheeks and the corners of my mouth
as much as i can when i remember,
but they never lift as much as i imagine.

what if someone told you i was Dead ?
would your heart and lungs wear holes?
would my shadow linger in some empty white space when you close your eyes?
would you miss my life on Earth, too?

and what if i told you i was Dead all along?
would your nose be poisoned by the imagined smell of rotting flesh?
would i appear translucent to you, separated by a veil?
would you channel God's power to expel me into evanescence?

or would you shrug?
because it simply seemed
too true.

~ april seventh, 2025 ~

7. before and after the fall (and everything in between)

she began to steer
a time machine; to find new
homes, lives. different.

her present was vile,
desecrated with man's pride.
she sought higher steps.

came to the future,
it was filled with dust and rock.
too dry, and too dead.

she went to the past,
and found diamonds and glitter.
she stayed, well, content.

but time passed, and soon
she was back in the present.
she did not want steps.

~ april eighth, 2025 ~

8. perhaps antipholus sought the impossible (almond)

(Note: title is referencing the quote, "I to the world am like a drop of water that in the ocean seeks another drop," said by Antipholus (of Syracuse) in William Shakespeare's play, The Comedy of Errors.)

~ april ninth, 2025 ~

9. plucking the strings of gilded bracelets

silver chains and gems,
paintings pristine and frames gold.
coins, bits, and trinkets.

it seems that we all
keep what can be held, but not
lost and forgiven.

~ april tenth, 2025 ~

10. in time

soon, the clouds will open for a pocket of sunshine to stream down below.
soon, the morning windchimes will tickle your ears once again.
soon, the stars will draw constellations for us, and let us trace them.
soon, birds will sing sweet songs or screech shrill quarrels.
it doesn't matter. neither will translate to our words.
soon, after the rain, a rainbow will paint in the sky and the earth will soak in petrichor.

soon, the arms of pain's hopeful prophecy will embrace us once more.
soon, the warm hands of love's touch will hold ours tight in the dark.
soon, the rain will subside and dry the wood to light a match.
soon, the match will go out.
soon, we will find merely cold in place where nothing has been found.
soon, we will miss when we could find something.
soon, we will miss when we could still see what was ahead.

soon, an angel will find us and carry us home.
or perhaps, darkness will find us.
soon, the pages of our story will feel ink.
soon, that ink may bleed.
soon, we may bleed.
inside and out.
soon, we may find a door out.
real or unreal.
going in or out.
soon or perhaps later.
no sooner than now, because
now is too close to ever be far away again.

yes,
soon, the morning windchimes will tickle your ears once again.
soon, birds will sing sweet songs or screech shrill quarrels.
it doesn't matter.
neither will translate
to our words.

~ april eleventh, 2025 ~

11. infinitesimal

humans, large; ants, small.
ants, die in dust; man, a box.
stars, ev'rything. none.