Author: inkinherveins

• National Poetry Writing Month, 17-20

  17/30: Staying Alive It requires so many decisions.Every day, so many choices.How do we even do it?Drink water and eat.Every day.Multiple times a day.But the water is contaminatedand the food is poison,so be careful about whereyour water comes from andbottled water is environmentallydisastrous, but filters don’t getthe arsenic, and who knowswhat else is in our…

  ---

• Upcoming Offering for Locals: Playful Writing

  Join me on Thursdays in June for a 4-week series, held at The Church Project in Monte Vista, CO. Playful Writing is an interactive workshop that is all about play! Writing can be a serious task, and we often forget how fun it can be! Writers of all levels are welcome! Whether you are an…

  ---

• National Poetry Writing Month, 13-16

  I broke away from some of the original prompts I came up with, following inspiration for these days. 13/30 Dust Dust swirls and sweeps, the windsighing at first, and increasingin strength to a full wail,rattling the windows.The wind, in a frenzy, throwingdust against buildings andbuffeting cars on long, stretching highways. Just when the wind is…

  ---

• National Poetry Writing Month: Poems 9 – 12

  9/30 – Clothes and Makeup It was taken as an insult when, at 12 or 13,I first asked to choose my own clothes—tee-shirts, three-quarter length and v-neck topsfrom the juniors section instead of pants and sweater sets,in the same colors, from the petite section.I wanted to dress my age, more like the girls I knewand…

  ---

• National Poetry Writing Month: Poems 5-8

  5/30 Cutting Down Trees Lush green leaves, waxy, thick with fragrant blossoms.I sat underneath, sheltered from bright sun,The noise of neighbors in their yardsOr my parents fighting insideMuffled beneath the umbrella of rhododendrons. The afternoon quiet rips open with the soundof metal eating into wood–chainsaw shaving awaygreen hedges of evergreen and rhododendronin the yard across…

  ---

• National Poetry Writing Month

  I managed 28/30 poems for April. I didn’t write a poem everyday; some days I wrote 6 to catch up. I shared the first 8 on my social media, towards the beginning of the month, but mostly kept them to myself. I’ll share a few more, here. These are poems I wrote by hand, and…

  ---

• sore heart, tired soul

  I’m reading and writing poetry this morning. I don’t know what else to do to soothe my heart. It has been a month of mixed emotions, a month of wounds being re-opened, or perhaps open wounds just being uncovered. After my birthday journey (pilgrimage?), I felt so full of possibility, so transformed, so hopeful and…

  ---

• Grave-side birthday

  

  content note for discussion of death, miscarriage, and suicidal ideation My life began with death. This is not a metaphor. On March 24th, 1984, my mom went into early labor, during a sandstorm in the desert. She went into early labor because my twin miscarried. Because my twin miscarried, the doctors figured out that my…

  ---

• Find Me Way Out There

  

  “You are not this mind, you are not this body.” Geeta’s voice came to us through the speaker, the laptop propped up on a stack of books, all of us seated around the large dining room table. Several people nodded, accepting the words. “Everything is one,” Geeta continued. “This illusion that we are all separate,…

  ---

• what does the body remember?

  The past couple of weeks, I’ve disliked everything I’ve written. New poems I’m working on, an essay I’ve been trying to write, Facebook statuses, comments on posts, feedback to clients, even emails responding to leads or text messages I’ve tried to compose. I’ve looked back at old work and couldn’t make reasonable decisions about revision.…

  ---