i always write about the ocean or the stars twilight skies, midnight depths contrasting, comparing, calling to my soul two eyes of the same universe
when i write about the oceans i feel the salt settle over my skin in puffs of laughter the lull of the great crashing expanse tugs through my head and over bare feet
when i write about the stars i note the silence of the emptiness the winking of the giants beyond filling up the endless inbetweens
floating in a calm sea at night there is no longer a horizon just a sphere of stars and depths untold and gentle silence as you drift through banners of diamonds above and below kissed by the heart of the universe
Last edited by TheBlueCat on Sat Apr 08, 2023 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
Love your latest poem! The tanka structure worked really well for the topic, I feel like shorter poetry forms complement themes of mourning/grief wonderfully. The last line especially ("cliff where half of my heart fell") hit so hard!
sour-sweet apple juice sticks to the webbing between my fingers, running through the valleys of my palm and dripping down, down to the thirsty earth below.
a shell of golden sugar syrup caves in to hungry lips, melting my grin into caramel laughter; sticky-sweet memories clinging.
faces blur through the warped lens of time and caramel-covered fingers loose their fingerprints. smiles stretch not quite as wide, and the background crackles into static.
sugared juices run down the memory, tainting it with nostalgia and longing. faded friends and echoes of joy melt through the valleys of my mind.
watercolors are more permanent than memories. these fading polaroids drip with laughter and friendships, now forgotten, and they leave my fingers sticky with echoes of emotions,
tainted sour-sweet.
Spoiler! :
First time doing a poetry reading! Let me know if the media doesn't work <3
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
fractured memories drift over charred landscapes smoldering pieces disappearing in the hungry maws of the flames continuity becomes a loose term as father time frosts over the fragments of my past
playing chess with half the pieces and no rules is easier than living with these half-forgotten memories and loose concepts of emotion frostbite eating away at the edges
i'm running a marathon without any shoes the ashes sticking to my blistered feet i mourn for things i can't remember the rubble below watered by ice-cold tears
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
salty tracks of tears long dried by the kisses of the breeze rushing in with the tides, a reminder I was crying at all over the ashes now hugged by the soft waters rolling out.
Spoiler! :
More attempts at structured poetry: this one's a nonet!
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
Dried up by the inferno of sunlight after the raging storm. Crushed underfoot in the rush to get from arbitrary point A to aimless point B, by the need to get there on a straight, flat path of perfect square rocks.
Unforgiving to the simple little worms.
Washed out in the waves of water, fighting through oceans on the concrete. Our home overlaying theirs, cruel angles bisecting natural landscapes. Man-made creations become frying pans for soft, organic bodies.
There are no worms dead in the grass.
Are the worms the only ones dying? I often wonder if I am anything more than a worm: a soft, simple life left to crisp on creations built without regard to my existence.
I make sure to watch my step when it rains.
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
i stopped breathing three years ago. i think that's when i came to be here. maybe not here, exactly, but out in this nothing, this everything. there's nothing to breathe in space, anyway, even if i had the courage to try again. i'm just stuck in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
it's strange. i don't know how i got here or if i'm even going anywhere. i couldn't tell you how i feel. i'm a little numb from all this time out here. i'm just drifting, in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
it's not quiet, though. space is a lot louder than you think (if you're alive to listen, that is). it's full of the groans of growing pains, stretching and pulling at the edges of the universe, the shuddering cry of everything echoing through the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
there's a lot to look at, at least. my eyes are never hungry, but my fingers, my fingers yearn to reach across the lightyears of emptiness and feel something again. maybe it's been longer than i thought. but there's no way to measure time in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
i wonder if anyone remembers me. remembers when i walked (walked!) on solid ground and shared a little bit of planetary space with them. it's fading all too fast in my memory, like a vivid dreamscape wisping through your fingers as the morning shakes you awake. i'm awake, though, here in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
you'd think there would be nothing to replace memories when there's nothing new in the nothing. but i still can't number the stars. i'm still left wallowing in how insignificant i am among countless giants, some as old as time itself. but, like me, they will never touch anything through the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
maybe i never was alive, just a girl-shaped space that decided to dream. probability laughs at a place like this. i choose to believe i was alive, at least once, so i don't succumb to this place. i'll just continue to be my own anchor in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
Spoiler! :
A small easter egg for the seventh day of NaPo: each stanza has seven lines, and there are seven stanzas :)
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
you'd think after 24 years, the darkness would be less lonely. but i was built for the light, no matter how many years i deny my truth. i still shy away.
it never seems to get easier, though my skills are the sharpest and my tools are the best. i can't seem to stop hesitating, but the fractions of seconds get smaller over the years.
the insults are always the same, but they stopped leaving marks 8 years ago when i bought my first blade. do i have too many callouses, or did i lose my heart along the way? i'd ask my mother, but i can't bear her tears if there really is a hole in my chest where a heart should be.
just because i'm good at it, doesn't mean it's always been easy. i still have scars from the times when my aim was not yet true, and my strength faltered. i've learned how to patch my own wounds, though.
i was never supposed to be remembered, but it still hurts sometimes, even though i never learned how to be a friend. i may have submitted myself to this darkness, but the shadows are no comfort to a lonely soul.
am i just lost?
i often sit awake and wonder if i had any other choice on this road. was there any way to let light in, or was i damned from the start?
there's no way to know.
i was not cursed to handle the fabric of time, only cut the strings of others. there's no going back, but regret is a cruel friend that sits on the steps and mocks everything i've done. he's the only one i can't kill.
these nights get darker when they should get lighter. i wonder if there's any way to keep a conscience with this kind of work. i don't know if i truly still have one, or if it's just a cruel trick of the light.
i can't complain when the world is cruel to me. i know i can be far crueler. but i think that little girl is still in there somewhere, taking the cuts that bounce off of my façade. i was never very good at keeping anything alive.
Spoiler! :
A poem from the perspective of my OC, Rune, the assassin. I've been trying to get inside her head to understand her motives as I continue to write her story.
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
it's hard to feel okay with be unmemorable. i never wanted to make the history books, or the news, or even the bulletin board that holds faded faces, tacked up like butterflies, to be peered at like grime under a microscope, another face added to the crowds in dreams.
i never minded being unremarkable, jack of all trades, master of none felt good enough for me. but what would people remember?
would they recall a smile? or ponder on some conversation? would my presence have been interesting enough to claim a parcel of memory?
i never work to be remembered, and yet i ache at the thought that my life was nothing more than dust breathing.
Unofficial Blue Cat of YWS =^-^= she/her please <3
Love the extra depth that adding the recording adds to some of your poems above! In your latest the final line: " yet i ache at the thought / that my life was nothing more than dust breathing" is such a powerful and sad line to end on. The feeling of "will I be forgotten" comes through in a few of these and I think many people can relate to the emotions expressed!
These lines were especially hitting:
it's fading all too fast in my memory, like a vivid dreamscape wisping through your fingers as the morning shakes you awake. i'm awake, though, here in the middle of nowhere, the middle of everywhere.
Keep on writing Cat!
you should know i am a time traveler & there is no season as achingly temporary as now
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