Ariel, Pacific NW poet

Day twenty-five – Only six days to go.

I’m going to be  a little lazy on today’s posting. It’s only of those very miserable days when a migraine is present … and I can’t just hide in the dark for 24 hours like I normally must do. As CC Willow, I am participating in a monthly Art Walk this Friday. and lots to do to prepare for it! Including making pendants and cards featuring my paintings.  Yesterday I was excited about it. Today I am just trying to keep breathing. Tomorrow I will be excited about the Art Show again.

Being a free-lance creative – I no longer get sick days; I just have to power through. Just hope I don’t melt into a screaming puddle on the Keizer streets cuddling my head. If I’m lucky, my head will actually implode and stop hurting as a result.  Yes – it’s a real wish when my migriaine is present. I remember my first migraine; couldn’t believe anyone could live through that kind of pain, I could not stop screaming. Past three years, migraines have become a monthly occurance. Fortunately, my brother will be out & about at doctor appointments today – so I have a break in nursing duties for several hours.

At least, as a consolation, I was given a Stormtropoper’s head for the group project.

As for my personal Poem A Day Challenge , today’s PAD is … on a flower petal.

In Robert Lee Brewer’s AprPAD 2017 challenge it is Tuesday – -which means Twofer Tuesday prompts! Todays is (had to expect it sometime this month) love and anti-love…

NaPoWriMo’s featured participant today is Tea Parties on Neptune.  Featured poet today is poet Douglas Kearney, whose poetry often involves very visual, altered typography as well as onomatopoeia – poems meant to be seen and heard out loud. You can learn more about Kearney here, and read some of his work here and here.

NaPoWriMo’s prompt is to write a poem that explores a small, defined space – it could be your childhood bedroom, or the box where you keep old photos. It could be the inside of a coin purse or the recesses of an umbrella stand. Any space will do – so long as it is small, definite, and meaningful to you.

The Poets&Writers 30 Day Challenge prompt is to write a  letter to a landscape or scene you pass through today. For example, “Dear Williamsburg Bridge …

The Poetry School’s NaPoWriMo prompt today is write a poem in which every line ends with the same word.

Last year’s AprPAD love/anti-love poem was avoir le mal de quelqu’un (from which we got “malady”), one of the few times I combined both Twofrer Tuesday prompts into a single poem …

avoir le mal de quelqu’un

i have stopped looking for you
in everybody i meet
you have hidden yourself too well and too deep
and i am too tired
this is how i know i died

not the withdrawal symptoms that plagued me for years
not the unsteady legs, the trembling hands
the feverish nights
even losing my teeth didn’t teach me that –
they proved i still lived, still had hope for our “someday”

no, my death is in their absence
i no longer notice or acknowledge that tremor in my hands
i no longer crave the food my body rejected in lieu of you
my mind ignores any contortions of that primal muscle
my dreams don’t exist.

it’s not even that “one day at a time” cliche
there is no longer such a mechanism as time –
no day, no night, no movements of the moon
unceasing sun, harsh daylight that drys out everything
down to just facts and chemicals, bone and rock.

i believed many times over the years
i’ve hit rock bottom, could not get worse
but it was only outcroppings on the way down
this is worst and i am still falling
concussed, bleeding, confused

with that december embrace
you have wrecked me, stripped me, addicted me
so insidious and yet you did not intend it
how could you have known you would be some stranger’s drug?
i didn’t, hadn’t foreseen it,

i, knowing the risks, was guarded; I knew love destroyed.
stayed on top of the game, knew how much a dose
to taste without it hitting the bloodstream.
didn’t see you coming
and now can’t see you at all.

if we were to survive tragedy – say airplane crash –
don’t expect to be the one to wrap me in your arms to comfort
i will shun you … don’t get me wrong, i don’t hate you
chances are that i was the one who pull you ashore
but once saved, don’t stop me from going back into the ocean

i am too tired, your antipathy too deep
i have stopped looking for you in anybody i meet

That’s it. See you tomorrow when I will be human again …