Midnight Whispers

I sometimes wonder
If all the world is a joke,
And we, the punchline.

–

Dark thoughts are easy,
During the midnight hours.
Dreams seem far away.

–

I always find my
Conviction before bed, and
Lose it while I sleep.

–

I am my harshest
Critic in the space between
Wakefulness and sleep.

–

A thought passes me.
What is the point of it all?
To live? To love? Pain?

–

The moon rules the night,
Not outdone by her sister.
This is when she shines.

–

The past rushes to
Meet me as I close my eyes,
To be lived again.

–

I practices speeches
In the dark, knowing they will
Never see the light.

–

These words keep going
Round and round, through my tired
Mind – rest eludes me.

© The Lightning Tower, 2020

When the Past Comes Knocking

Olivia slid into the booth with a sigh.

“Bad day?” her cousin, Frieda, asked, look up from the menu.

“I finally quit my job,” Olivia said, with her head tilted back against the booth, eyes closed.

“Congrats!” Frieda said, putting down the menu. “You’ve been miserable for months. Now you can do something you actually want to do.”

“Yeah,” Olivia said, not moving, “but I don’t know what that is.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Frieda said, picking the menu back up. “You always do.” She grinned, “I do want to be there when you tell Grandma, though.”

continue reading

Lost

I am lost in my head,
But I write about the world.
I write of smells and textures,
Of expressions and intentions.
I write of hands trailing over rough bark,
Of hair brushing across faces.
I write of the brisk night air,
And how it makes me feel.

My mind does not rest,
Getting caught up in what-if,
What-was, and what-will.
I hide away from the feeling world,
A method of self-preservation.
I sometimes miss the world outside.
But the beauty can be painful,
When you feel as much as I.

I write of other people and other places,
But I wonder,
How much do I write of me?
Am I in the whispering breeze,
The tinkling rain,
The darkness of my words and the light?
I pull my mind away from the world,
And put it back within my words.

© The Lightning Tower, 2020

Differing Opinions

“I. Hate. Laundry.” Patience grunted as she heaved an armful of wet clothes from the washing machine, and lugged them to the dryers. “Who has time for this? All the time? For the rest of our lives?”

“Patience, I will never get over the fact that you are the least patient person I know,” Margaret grinned over the pile of clean clothes she was folding.

“Yeah,” Patience said with a dramatic sigh. “My mom has regretted naming me that since forever. She says she was hoping I would be more patient than she is, but that I took it as a challenge, and she should have known better.”

continue reading

Fragments

What is poetry?
Why, the work of a poet.

But what is a poet?
One who creates poetry.

Then all can be poetry?
Yes.

–

Sometimes I do not feel like a writer.

These words don’t come from me,
They come through me.

I am a conduit for something else.
I am merely hands
And intention.

© The Lightning Tower, 2020

Icebreakers

Vivian popped a dark berry in her mouth, closing her eyes. “Don’t you just love blackberries?”

“I tend to prefer strawberries,” Austin replied, glancing at the plate stacked high with fruit on the table between them.

“Yes, strawberries are good as well,” Vivian said, selecting another blackberry from the pile, “but there is something about the mix of tart and sweet, in the subtle flavor, of a blackberry that just speaks to me.” She chuckled. “I guess that sounds weird, huh?”

“Not really,” Austin shrugged. “It means you are in touch with the world around you, I think.”

continue reading

Make It Hurt

“Let go of me!”

“Liam, wait, wait!” Becka panted, trying to hold her brother back.

“I’m going to tear him limb from limb,” Liam grunted, his eyes never leaving the smug smile mocking them from the television. “I am going to go out there right now, and hunt him down, and I swear to god, Becka, I’m gonna kill him.”

continue reading

Fifty-Five

For a long time, I was a storyteller without a voice. I buried myself in other people’s words, so I didn’t have to listen to the ones haunting me. I would sit down at my computer, or with a pen and paper, and stare at the blank page, giving up in frustration. I couldn’t start; before words even made it to the page, I would question them, edit them, try to shape them into something they didn’t want to be. This went on for years, and I think I suffered for it.

All those ghosts, all those stories never told.

So finally, after a lot of thought, I started this blog. Originally, it was a challenge for myself: write something, anything, and post every day for 30 days. I needed something outside of me to hold myself accountable. Something that could become a routine, where I would feel off, wrong, if I didn’t log in, if I didn’t write or proofread or post.

Some days were easy, and the stories just presented themselves, flowing out of me in one burst. Other times, I had to pull each word from my brain, slowly, painfully. Some days, I wrote short poetry, just to have something. Some days I didn’t even write, but posted a piece I had written in the past. But I did it. Every day, for 30 days.

And then something surprising happened. I realized it had become a habit. I kept going. I watched as the number of posts kept going up, up, up. I started mid-January, but as of yesterday, I posted every day for a whole month, in February.

I started this blog with hope, but not optimism, that I would be able to post 30 days in a row.

This, today, is my 55th post. It might not be much in the scope of a year, or a decade, or a lifetime, but for now, I am going to savor this milestone I didn’t think I’d reach.

© The Lightning Tower, 2020

Daydreams

She lay on the cool green grass, feeling the leftover morning dew soak into her back. She didn’t care; it was a beautiful spring day, she could taste summer on the air, and the clouds above her whisked across the sky like they were late for a meeting. She wondered, absently, what the clouds might feel like, what they might taste like. Would they be like this spring morning, cool and refreshing? Or maybe they were like cotton candy, spun sugar that danced across the sky.

She giggled at the thought. She knew the clouds were just water gathering high above them before showering down on her little planet. But still, what if… She reached her hand up, tracing the puffy white clouds. What if, she thought, we could just reach up, into the sky, and pull down the clouds ourselves? Would they hold their form, and stay clean and bright and airy, or would they dissolve into droplets on the way down?

continue reading