Beneath An Abandoned Hospital

"By then I'd had enough, and as we made our way up and out of the hospital's bowels, I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing. It's true that such spaces remind us, in a scary but seductive way, of our own temporariness and the relatively short life of all that we build and do. And it's true that the abject darkness of the tunnels made the world outside impossibly bright and alive.
But this is also true:
It is nice, on a Thursday morning in April, to be a kid for a while, exploring with old friends, never knowing what wonder or terror may await around the corner.
And isn't that why we explore, and also why we read and watch sports and browse Tumblr and study astrophysics? Whether we're watching horror movies or accidentally visiting their sets, I think we're after the terrifying, awesome, otherworldly feeling of not knowing what lies in wait."
- John Green

Love Like a Rose

My love is like a red, red rose
Well, that’s all bullshit, isn’t it?

My love is like a dying rose
Dying, drying, falling, failing
With spotted petals drifting from the withered hip
Velvet soft wrinkles turn to paper-thin crinkles
And sweet seduction's scent becomes bitter-sour

We had our beauty, our brilliance
Our moment in the summer sun
And now aphids have come
Chewed holes through our thornless leaves
And we desperately pour water to save ourselves
Just one more day
As scarlet fades to dusty brown
And green turns grey and brittle

The only strength in dying comes to thorns
Once as delicate as the petals
If you knew how to touch them right
Points bending with a breath
Breaking off with the push of a thumb
Now they cling stolidly to the twigs that were stems
Becoming hard, tough, untouchable
A simple annoyance grown into a painful prick

(extended metaphor poem)

I dreamt of meeting you last night.

I dreamt of meeting you last night, in the open room of the language building where couches gather in clumps around coffee tables and potted plants. You sat on the floor, barefoot as always, your guitar in your lap and your hair short as I've only seen it once in the many times I've seen you. It's been too long since I've seen you, angel boy, which is funny because—last I counted—it's been only six months. How could two years have felt like nothing when six months seems like an eternity?

I still wonder if I will ever see you again before we're both gone forever.

Seaside

The texture of the sea—chill and heat, gentle and harsh at the same time as the waves crash over my bare legs, the droplets trickling down my skin like ants as the water pulls away. Sand—stone-cold, grainy, mushes between the toes that I still cannot get used to, and I curl them, digging through the hard-packed sand to the gloop underneath where water pools and the sides of the holes slide inwards and collapse on themselves. Sharp broken clamshells scrape my water-delicate skin, crab remains even sharper and hard, hard as the crustacean’s last defense that clearly failed him this time. The only soft moments are the downy seagull feathers that litter the ground, blowing gently, stuck, trying to escape like they know they don’t belong to this rough touch landscape.

Closer to the water, round pebbles break my new feet—I have never felt this before, the pain they cause. It hurts more than the knives of dancing, the way rocks have now betrayed me. The salt clings to my skin, leaving patchy trails of white. I do not understand toenails, how they collect remnants of the sea that I am obliged to clean in the bathtub. The wind blows my hair—the only thing on land that reminds me of home and the way currents once ran through seaweed. This sea is not mine, this abovelookingdown. A prince was not worth the disparity between what I know and what I see. But this wind, oh this wind! This wind was worth it all.

(describe a place in terms of one sense)

Just Stories

“We’re all just stories in the end,” he had told her.
But it was more than that, she wanted to say. They weren’t just nameless, faceless characters in some long-forgotten myth or fairytale—they had hearts and souls and thoughts and feelings. They sang songs down the highway and searched for needles of truth in a haystack full of complicated humanity. They knew the subtle friction of skin on skin, the rare fire that a light touch could ignite when coupled with the right words. As children, they had skipped stones on the calm ocean and cried when they sank halfway across the bay. They could recall the scent of roses and woodfire as petals burned and gasped up into the sea of late June stars. They were more than stories; more than fictions; more than beginnings, middles, or endings; and more than anything her writer self could ever dare to imagine.

(freewrite: we're all just stories in the end, friction, needle in a haystack)

Amphibious

Your selfish tears
Put mine to shame
Oh, weeping weeping girl
For spiteful fairies
Golden balls
Have made us long for something more

I will fetch your wond'rous sun
And sing your hymns of haughty praise
Appease your vain attempts at pride
And search the depths for what you’ve lost

But in return
I want your home
Upon your cushioned throne I’ll lay
If you thrice lift me from my spring
And place me by your side tonight

I never loved you, weeping girl
I hope you never loved me too

Space & Time

All of space and time—that’s what he and this magic box could offer her. A life in boring old Leadworth—that’s all Rory had. The decision—if one could even call it that—was not hard to make. The moment she stepped inside the TARDIS, her heart filled with excitement. The prospect of far-off worlds and the adventures she had always longed for seemed to overwhelm her senses until she could see, hear, smell, feel everything ten times clearer than she had only moments before. The lights pierced her vision; everything glowed orange and silver. Every tinkle and clank registered in the front of her mind instead of the back. Whiffs of metal, salt, and a strange, foreign half-burning, half-cooling smell mixed with the gentle puffs of soapwood air that blew every time the engine in the center of the room pumped.

(freewrite: space)

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

Six-Word Stories

Wine, scattered clothes. Morning: I’m sorry.

"You're happy?"
"I smile, don't I?"

Laboratory meltdown. Test subjects have escap—

Microwaved popcorn today. Hello fire trucks.

Saw cute girl boy. Thanks, Genericon.

Girl Before a Mirror

I.
Do you see what I see?

II.
Inverted colors
Skewed perspective
Nonsensical lines
Misplaced stripes
Medallion of truth

III.
Stretch marks
Bulbous stomach
Breasts like oranges
Misshapen hands

IV.
Matted hair
Half-moon face
Devil’s eyes
Bloodstained tears

V.
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
Repetition doesn’t make it real
Any more than vibrant colors do

(ekphrastic poem; in response to Pablo Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror")