Prompt: Write about a time you paused for love (edited)
My old friends smell of lived grief and self care They somehow make it without a pension Can’t move from away the big city because interest rates got high while they got sober Gave up whiskey for microdosing Their youth for a mortgage they can never pay off Why is it called it an interest rate when there’s nothing less interesting than the rate at which we’re forced to buy what we can’t afford — owe on what seems like will never be ours A future that doesn’t smell like struggling to make ends meet Ends that were cut from different classes of what it means to stay alive. I take a breath and think of my old friends. Tonight my writer friends smell of perseverance A Tuesday night opium den of hope where every poem is a love poem or a war cry Smoke signals rise from wholehearted pens and dwindling minutes on the clock I listen as the slow burn of their 30’s scorches the page and they fan the flames of 40. I’m changed by them. I pause and feel it. Really let it in. Meanwhile the only 60 I ever thought I’d be was in a getaway car driving fast up River Rd Over that one stretch of short, sharp hills Catching air and having to explain to my father, when he asks about bent axles and broken tie rods, why the car always smelled like weed that was never mine Trying to explain what it’s like being a ghost at 16 with a license to drive anywhere but haunting only your own existence Trying to outrun what you are I thought you were the good kid he’d say as he shook his head But I was just the chameleon kid He didn’t notice my bad parts against the lights and sirens arresting me into a life sentence of adulting I knew all the places to hide the real shit right under his nose In the wheel wells of feigned obedience The center console of never living up to expectations I bet there’s even still some skunked out self-recrimination tucked in the side panel of all my noble but futile attempts to fit in— to be good They never body checked the cavities of the ones who weren’t cocky The ones who drove fast but only at midnight Only in moonlight The ones who reeked of hiding places and the fear of getting caught being themselves. I take a breath and think of us. I smell of a good earth now Of all the lives I buried un-secreting a secret keeper Of half truths and emotional neglect reparented The curtain rises on this third act and I smell promise in the blood of my years Still can’t move from the city so I run faster toward stars that are brighter when you don’t look right at them Toward everything that blooms in the dark I pause and remember not to be embarrassed by how much good love I left on tables that were never set for me. I was so fucking good. That love was so fucking clean.
* WWKC is a weekly writing workshop facilitated by Frances Story, director of Salt Tooth Writers. I encourage you to follow her substack, Short Story. Her writing is gorgeous and unparalleled. Her personhood is a gift.
If you’re wanting to write, join her class. The people here, the art they create, and the space Frances curates for it and us is really special. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.
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This poem is from last night’s prompt: Write about a time you paused for love. It’s a stream of consciouness poem. A confluence of overthinking everything; talking to old friends who shared my youth and now stand on the precipice of Act III with me and we’re wondering about it all; listening to The Tourtured Poets Department a dozen times in the last few days and appreciating a good TS hook; discovering new hope in old places after a long hard season in the dark; and my infinite love of a good, tender pause.
"In the wheel wells of feigned obedience." ... I mean. That's just ONE line. Poets need to get paid better!! You should be a millionaire!
I'm so glad you posted this! The Tuesday night opium den of hope hit me like a brick wall when you read it last night. Absolutely obsessed with this peace.