Writing Prompt

I speak, but a strangers voice comes out. I, Am trapped in a world in which I don’t, Feel that I belong. I feel like an alien here. Questions linger, unanswered and Heavy is the heart that carries doubt, I'm A soul adrift on turbulent seas, not Convinced that this skin fits me well.

It’s crazy How much I remember But it’s all there I remember your lips The shape of them How soft they always were I remember your smile Cocky, with a smirk at the end I remember how you smelled Intoxicating, overwhelming I remember how you made my heart race Pounding out of my chest, skipping beats Whenever you would look at me I remember your eyes Blue and beautiful So easy to get lost in I didn’t forget a thing Somehow My memory preserved you perfectly

To spot a golden tove Out far by the sea green wabes With sweat and dirt from the borogroves And feet blistering from prickly mome raths Is a special thing my son

Guide books can’t capture the toves manxome foes Jub jubs, Bandersnatches and Jabberwocks Their icy stares, vicious snarls, snicker-snack Of their beating wings, so stand in thought By the TumTum tree and take stock Of what you see

She shined so bright and majestically With a generosity that knew no limit Hospitality wielded unapologetically A boundless love that was far from timid

Yet I never really got to know her Saw only a fraction of who she was Like a rich man to his chauffeur She fought, but I never knew her cause

How much she loved me now pains me A priceless gift taken for granted Sacrifice neglected by its sole beneficiary Who bloomed where he was replanted

The mission ahead is now plain to see “Honor her for all that her hands have done” Which allowed me to become all I could be And her legacy to shine as bright as the sun

To lose yourself is to lose a sense of “I,”

To mix a lot of what you think you like

With what you think will be the next big

Thing, to trade “yeses” for “buts;”

To strive to be popular and

Well-thought-of, you give away your “I;”

But you will learn that—over time—you cannot

Convince yourself, sir, that you must lie.

At such a time as this First, we must turn away We need not engage Don't imitate their poisoned gossip Answer trouble with tact

Credit: Professional Spanish Knocks on the Door by Elisabet Velasquez

(Referencing the first nine words of my favorite Emily Dickinson poem)

Into the void again! And I'm So certain I am nobody So certain none will ask me who I am or what I want. There are A million somebodies for you To waste your time with. We are - Us nobodies, I mean - no use to you. You know it, when you meet a nobody And if you don’t, then you might be one, too.

(The poem I used was one of my faves! Deaths by Pedro Salinas)

The dawn rises in search of you and all the nights you’ve shed

Your presence is a choir of leaves gyrating slowly with pointed toes, arched in the ever-shifting face I’ve come to dream of

One by one you surrender leaves to winter

Your calibrachoa smile Your black tupelo eyes The vibrant canopies of color And all of your precious clothing

The planet’s watchful eye reduces in size And all of creation will wander about your brisk and well-worn shoes

“So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay”

When Innocence was so Lost in the Garden of Eden The sun of youth sank Below the horizon of hope to A sky draped in grief

A future so Uncertain cannot promise dawn Yet so it goes Onward and upward and down In search of something to Give meaning to the day

And if it comes to nothing The sun’s gold Light can Fade but let innocence stay

I still hate him; he was all take, I was all give,

As he found himself, I drifted apart from me,

I was desperate. I thought I needed a

Male.

So I dissected a corpse,

And realised what had I been waiting for?

I was desperate. I needed a....

...I don’t know...something to achieve in the long run, and it was long,

I became a doctor. It was long, slow,

But I did it. And celebrated with a trip to where I was meant to go on my honeymoon.