poketdoodlr

[poketdoodlr]

Plastic spoons and snickerdoodles

Remind me

Of death.

Of funerals.

Of weeping together on the couch holding each other when we can't hold it together trying to comprehend.

My first funeral

A boy my little sister had had a crush on

And half the ward too.

Gone in a flash.

Gone in a crash.

And all we had at the memorial the visitation the viewing the funeral

Were snickerdoodles

Never had the cookie much before

Never had as many in one week as then

But it was his favorite type

And these were to be parties he'd want to attend

So cinnamon and yellow batter

Make me remember death.

My third funeral

(or maybe second and a half, I don't know how to count the streamed one during a pandemic, not a virus plauged body but cancer, cancer with the worst timing, the only timing it has)

(and she was only eleven)

My third funeral

Another young man my little sister had had a crush on

And half the ward too

Another one lost to cancer

Another one too soon

And all he brought to dances and parties and meets and even the memorial of a mutual friend

Were plastic spoons.

Not a set, not to share, only one or two

Pressed into a dance partner's hand

Slipped into a friend's pocket

Waiting with a smile to watch the confusion.

The day of his viewing I kept a plastic spoon in my pocket all through work, and brought it with me after.

I showed his mother with a lump in my throat

And laughter mixed with her tears.

"I want to hide it somewhere here," somewhere in the gold and tissues and cushions and tissues and flowers and tissues of the venue, "I thought he'd laugh about it."

"oh, put it in there with him."

I hesitate.

"He'd love it. We found a whole drawer when we went through his room. Do it."

I do.

I left one friend with a plastic spoon.

Another left me with the taste of snickerdoodle pressed forever under my tongue.

I walk through my school. A coworker has students highlight symbols.

A cross.

A scythe.

Broken arrows stained swords cracked shields

A raven, an owl, a vulture

A skull.

I think about snickerdoodles and plastic spoons, and I keep walking.

#free verse #spilled ink #funerals #death #tw funeral #tw death #tw cancer #cancer #i am scheduling this to post in a year. i hope by then I'll be ready for it to go into the world. #i hope it brings peace to others too #my poem #my poetry

[poketdoodlr]

"I know, I know," my mama who is not my mother holds me as I weep, "I know. And I know this life is a blink of an eye- you've just got to keep on blinking, mija."

I want to demand why he had to blink so quickly, but the words catch in my throat and can't even squeeze through with the sobs.

"I know, I know. Just cry, mija."

- just blink, just cry.

#i am scheduling this to post in one year. #today i went to the viewing of a dear friend and his funeral is tomorrow #our funerals are happy. i will be alright even as i miss him and cry. i will be alright #and he is alright now too #but i wanted to get the words out tonight #so i have put them here to be seen in a year #and hope that by then I'll be ready for the to be out like this #death #tw death #tw funeral #funeral

[poketdoodlr]

January,

the time of quiet

respite

before reprise

the deaths of December

and the funerals of February

- "January, 2022", RW

#my poem #my poetry #January

[poketdoodlr]

One day you'll stop

Count the months

And as ice fills your veins

You'll realize you've spent just as long missing her

As you spent loving her

And as tears fill your eyes

You'll think about how the rest of your life

You'll be missing her far longer than you loved her

And as pain fills your heart

You'll wonder if life is just about the loss that keeps you warm.

- R.W., "Entropy effects all, even soulmates"

[poketdoodlr]

Oh to paint little water lilies in tiny lockets, tucked away under bodices like portraits of lovers, but there is no curl sniped and pulled away, no taking pieces to hoard, just sealing up an image of nature, beauty so sacred it led to creation

[poketdoodlr]

I am tired

And I am scared

And I am taping a flashlight to a baseball bat

And I am going to start swinging

The darkness hasn't won

And the darkeness will not win

And the darkness will fail in the end

And the darkness isn't taking me either

- "Restless", RW

[poketdoodlr]

listen.

listen - the mountains curve like a cradle, like something ancient once laid within them. the trees live and wither and live and wither, like someone conducts their cycles to a symphony. listen - i am convinced that gods have planned the world from the top of the appalachians. that the cradle at the peaks is where they'd feast. that the reason for so much folklore about the mountains is because divinity once lived within them. listen - the water slips down the mountains like a child trying to find her parents in the nighttime. like all the miners who never left the shaft but are reaching, reaching, reaching. like the tears of gods who planned the world from the top of the appalachians.

#not my poem #listen. #mountains #nature

[poketdoodlr]

My dad was eating pistachios so I reached my hand out and he just started peeling them and giving them to me. Then suddenly went "I really hope you find someone who loves you a lot" and I went "enough to peel my pistachios for me?" And he laughed and said "yeah exactly" before carrying on giving me more

[poketdoodlr]

One day you'll stop

Count the months

And as ice fills your veins

You'll realize you've spent just as long missing her

As you spent loving her

And as tears fill your eyes

You'll think about how the rest of your life

You'll be missing her far longer than you loved her

And as pain fills your heart

You'll wonder if life is just about the loss that keeps you warm.

- R.W., "Entropy effects all, even soulmates"

#entropy effects all even soulmates #my poem #my poetry

[poketdoodlr]

Hey Sam! A long, long time ago, you posted a poem entirely from punctuation marks and had your followers translate it. I cannot remember what it was called, but I would really like to find it again. Can you help?

But of course! I can actually give you the whole poem, with authorship, although I don’t know where it might have been published. I didn’t actually have anyone translate it as far as I recall, but I can see how that drift in perception might have occurred. 

The Symbolic Poem by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese < > ! * ' ' # ^ " ` $ $ - ! * = @ $ _ % * < > ~ #4 & [ ] . . /  | { , , SYSTEM HALTED This poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit: Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash, Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash, Bang splat equal at dollar under-score, Percent splat waka waka tilde number four, Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash, Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

[poketdoodlr]

i run my hands up and down my sides and i feel how uneven they are how unbalanced unsymmetrical

i wipe tears from both eyes before they can fall wipe to the side not down the cheeks

no more sign of failure no more sign of disappointment expect what is still there

i ignore the tightness in my chest when i know my father is disappointed i know he loves me i know i am hard to love

i hate that he mistakes my forgetfulness for carelessness the problem was never that i had anything in less only that i had too much too full

i rock myself to sleep by whispering words that were meant for my brother when my father said he may always be like that but that a parent still had to try

i rock myself to sleep with words of comfort that weren't meant to be about me i tell myself he must say the same to him about me i tell myself he still tries for me

i think about the day i apologized twice in one conversation to someone and my father told me i already said sorry i didn't have to say it again

i think about how earlier that very same day he broke something of mine and yes he fixed it right away but never uttered the words of apology

i ignore the tightness in my chest when i know my father is disappointed i know he loves me i know we keep loving past each other instead and its so hard to learn a new language

“a bitter way to talk of love” - R.W

#a bitter way to talk of love #vent #my poetry #my poem

[poketdoodlr]

do you think

that because i am unable to love as you wish

that i am stone?

i am not.

i am warm and living and can cry

as i whisper to my pillow that the ways i do

breathe and live and love

must be enough.

do you think

that just the prayer to a god

will fix me?

it will not.

i am not cold not marble not a gift

for life to be breathed in for you to love you

do not make me Galatea

i am enough.

- “Stop telling me you love me like that.” RW

#stop telling me you love me like that #just a venty poem tonight guys #about the overlap of being queer and religious #about wanting to snap at a friend who tells you again that they are atracted to you #that you know and you feel guilty enough before the fact that you cant feel the same enters the equation #so could they please just let it go #about wanting to pray they stop loving you #about wanting to snap that god made you like this and that They love you like this #so why does that always come second third fourth fifth never mentioned never mentioned never mentioned when the topic comes up at churchh #about... things #my poem

[poketdoodlr]

12/30: what plant do you feel reflects you best?

schuyler peck / insta: hiitssky

#not my poem #nature #flowers

[poketdoodlr]

Rain, New Year's Eve

by Maggie Smith

The rain is a broken piano, playing the same note over and over.

My five-year-old said that. Already she knows loving the world

means loving the wobbles you can't shim, the creaks you can't

oil silent—the jerry-rigged parts, MacGyvered with twine and chewing gum.

Let me love the cold rain's plinking. Let me love the world the way I love

my young son, not only when he cups my face in his sticky hands,

but when, roughhousing, he accidentally splits my lip.

Let me love the world like a mother. Let me be tender when it lets me down.

Let me listen to the rain's one note and hear a beginner's song.

#not my poem #not my poetry #rain new years eve #i saw a post with a portion of this #so i looked the whole thing up #and i loved it

[poketdoodlr]

Oh to paint little water lilies in tiny lockets, tucked away under bodices like portraits of lovers, but there is no curl sniped and pulled away, no taking pieces to hoard, just sealing up an image of nature, beauty so sacred it led to creation

#is this poetry or do i just want to make more lilypad art

[poketdoodlr]

I am tired

And I am scared

And I am taping a flashlight to a baseball bat

And I am going to start swinging

The darkness hasn't won

And the darkeness will not win

And the darkness will fail in the end

And the darkness isn't taking me either

- "Restless", RW

#restless #my poetry

[poketdoodlr]

I think

I am too good at loving which I shall never see again

And not good enough loving which I shall see every Tuesday

And that dooms me

To the first

#Absence makes this heart fonder and communication is hard #but others cannot love a ghost #venting disguised as poetry #my poem