momebie

I sat down to write a poem about the moths that kept landing on my jacket on the walk home this evening, and an hour and a half later I have a gay fairy tale instead. I don't have any idea what to do with it, and I'd still like to write that poem, but well, this is where we are now. In a world with 3,000 more words of ladies learning about what love isn't. It's one of life's toughest lessons, after all.

Comments welcome, as always, because I seriously don't know what to do with it.


( The Tailor put his heart and soul into each dress he sewed her. Some of them were cages. Some of them were ropes. Some of them were sand dunes, lonely and blown. He of course did not see any of these things in his creations. )

So, the Writer's Digest poetry blog, Poetic Asides, does Poem-A-Day challenges in April and November. I did not get very far in April and never caught back up, but I'm doing a good job so far with November. Six for six! I'd been planning on just churning out poems for Sorry About the Robots based on the prompts, but for the last several prompts I've been moved in other directions. My new plan is to write poems about robots when I can, and when I can't, to write queer fairy tale poems. Because if there's one thing this world needs more of, it's that. Clearly.

(Queer as in 'odd' and also queer as in 'gay'. I'm a regular in both boxes!)

Well, I like tonight's, so I'm reposting it here. I DO WHAT I WANT. Right now I want to write a hundred more like it, but we'll see how that goes.

Soon after giving up their child
the young parents moved to Niagra,
so that they could spend their lives
assessing other people’s faults.
And eating salads without feeling guilty.

Rapunzel knows this because sometimes
when the old woman who adopted her is drunk
on wine and years, she says things
that she’ll later regret. And also because,
the tower has wifi.

But maybe it’s for the best, that
in a world where even the roses are fickle,
she gets to keep the golden moments
she made up in her mind, and not have to
cast out any of the bad ones that naturally
build up when you spend to much time with people.

It’s not like it used to be, even the witch
agrees. Rapunzel’s had three boyfriends
and two girlfriends, and has never had to deal
with morning breath, or shaving, or sharing
the last slice of pizza. She owns a vibrator.

Life is good. Life is longing anyway,
if the one thousand and five movies viewed
with her Netflix account is any indication.
Just last week she learned she had a sister:
who’s on a swim team, who listens to Taylor Swift,
who also loves Sailor Moon. Who keeps her hair short.

Rapunzel knows it’s a betrayal, but
she can’t keep herself from befriending the girl
and talking to her on twitter. She types the words
I’m your sister and deletes them again over
and over. It’s a betrayal, but the thrumming,
warm box under her fingers is so inviting.

The night Damon Salvatore is locked in
purgatory, is the night she hits send. It’s
a moment of weakness she’ll pay for, but
there’s nothing that can be done now.
She needs to share with someone
who will understand, and even from her tower,
the sunsets are beautiful.

And then her sister comes and saves her and they drive down Route 66 visiting all the tourist traps and telling each other stories. LIFE GOALS, TBH.

The one from last night was also fairy tale influenced, but weirder and darker. Someone on the Poetic Asides blog commented to say they like it when poets 'have thoughts that are different.' I uh, I don't know what means, since I'm pretty sure we've been making up fairy tales since before cave art. I guess they're probably just noting the difference between emotional poetry and poetry with a fictional narrative, but those two things overlap for me so it feels weird and redundant to have it pointed out. Reminds me of the LJ Idol debates over biographical journal type entries versus fictional narrative entries.

I still maintain that you learn more about me from my fiction than you do from my life, but what that means in the light of this one I don't know.