Opening Windows

Photo by author. Desktop background photo via Guerrilla Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Composed 1/20/18
Description: Inspired by today’s Daily Prompt: Horizon. For inspiration I searched for horizon pictures and got a new desktop in addition to the inspiration I was looking for…

Perhaps I am rooted to this place
To these walls to these people
To my duties to this life
Destined to watch the same sunrise
Pretty and calm over the same country skies

But I am not rooted to this place
Others capture beauty and adventure
And play as eager historians
Recording their wonder in images and words

A new horizon I could find
Every night every morning every hour
And plaster each one over my window
To catch a new perspective

And someday I hope you will take joy in my discoveries
Find enlightenment in these simple, small town words
For it’s my love to see the world through your eyes
So perhaps there is value to mine

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A Greater Perspective

Composed 10/27/16
Description: Inspired by today’s Daily Prompt: Smoke.

A quick search on my blog will show you I am no stranger to this topic or metaphor; though, each piece strongly tied to this topic ranges in style. Secondhand Smoke is a simple, bitter though (in phrasing) funny haiku, while the simply-titled Smoke is one of my more experimental pieces, strongly tied to real events and people and chockful of obscure symbolism (which I should definitely do more!). The present piece lies somewhere in the middle. 

The world may catch aflame
Burn to the ground and smolder
But cast your eyes not to the desolate earth
Instead follow the smoke
As it rises, catches the wind
And curls up to the stars
Let your gaze be caught your
Chin lifted
As you find pictures in the wisps
And remember what rests above

Narrative Therapy

Composed 10/13/16
Description: In a nutshell. For today’s Daily Prompt: Clumsy. Mixing in some of my social work student knowledge today.

If you tally every time you trip
Apologize to passerby
For every tipped glass and
Every concrete stumble
With a
Sorry, I’m clumsy
You’re telling a story

You think but
It may not be
Statistical reality
But how you’ve created
You

It’s as simple and
As complicated
As paying attention to your grace
And stressing your strengths
To tell a different story
As they say
It’s in the details –
The ones you write in –
To change your perspective
And be a hero or a villain

To a Second Story Window

Composed 5/13/16
Description: Day 9, several days late, but I have had an extremely busy weekend filled with work and orientation for my practicum, which was the thing that inspired this poem. The theme was “landscape,” the suggested device apostrophe.

Thank you, second story window
For the change in perspective
I was trapped within a cityscape
Crammed with meetings, responsibility
But you changed reality
Instead of sidewalks
I see treetops
The barest glimpse of a concrete wall overtaken
Like the city went to ruin
And nature bloomed overnight
Ivy, green, everything
Overrun by inevitable apocalypse
Now adventure awaits out there
Just outside your view

A Contrast in Perspective

Composed 3/8/16
Description: For today’s Daily Prompt: Contrast.

You see the world in monochrome
We see the world in black and white
Blue and pink
We see the rainbows and what’s gray
How they color coat the things of everyday that
Dictate what things we can touch
Without getting burned
And little changes as time passes
Because the masses and powerful see
The world through rose colored glasses
And that makes you
Blind

This Precious Day

Composed 4/5/15
Description: My poem for Day 5 of NaPoWriMo! This year, even though I had to work and ultimately miss a lot of Easter-y things, Easter hit me pretty hard. The joy of the holiday was contagious.

You are my ultimate perspective
Revealing the power of love in truest form
A fresh breath to take each morning
A reason to dance today
To rise with the sun
And sing with the birds
To grace each being with a gentle word
A gentle hand
And a smile to spread
To brighten eyes so we all may rejoice
As does the very earth this precious day
You are the love that inspires
Inspire me, inspire us
To love enough
So it touches each soul
As did yours
This precious day

Suffocating

Composed 3/14/14
Description: You could say a lot of “romantic” stuff is happening in my life. I’m a senior in college, and therefore I am expected to gleefully wave goodbye to my youth and wax on the beauty of how all my childhood years have brought me up to make me who I am today. Though, perhaps more importantly, yesterday my best friend got engaged, and, as the best friend, I am quite obligated to be chipper and sigh-y and mushy about the whole thing.

The thing is, though, with college, the reality hasn’t hit me, and I address the subject in general with much reluctance and many mixed feelings. I still feel like a sophomore, really, and I know getting out into the real world will likely be a nasty slap in the face. With my friend, well, I’m just not a mushy person I guess. I quite logically acknowledge that this is good for her and she’s happy, but putting on more than a smile and congrats just has not possessed me.

Meanwhile, everyone around me is so opposite. People can’t wait to get out there and start their life. They have dreams. They have fiancés. They squeal about people getting engaged. They have so much hope.

I think at one point in my life I was romantic, perhaps. But the years have dragged me down. I essentially major in “people have problems” and minor in “relationships are hard work,” so it’s hard to imagine a life for myself that ends on giddy fairytale note at the present time. And, thus, I think it’s hard for me to see it for other people too. Or maybe, my outlook for myself is so grim, that I’m reluctant to note when people have it going really well.

Though, apparently, sometimes my laid back attitude with regard to typically mushy things is appreciated by my friend. She knows she can come to me when she needs to chill out or get out of the spotlight. Still…

Somewhere
Within the folds and furrows of my heart
A hopeless romantic is struggling to breathe

Gasping
Under the massive weight laid upon her
A hot twenty year stack of ruthless realism

I know
It’s just going to take that someone
Who has a lot of sweet oxygen to give