Category Archives: Writing Challenge

Torn Love

6 Replies

Since today was still another free topic, I have chosen to take the Poets and Writers weekly prompt which is: The Flip Side—This week, think of something that has happened to you recently that was stressful, traumatic, or unpleasant. Write a poem about this event as you experienced it, regardless of anyone else’s perspectives or feelings on what occurred. Then rewrite the poem from the perspective of someone else involved in the situation. This new poem may not reflect the truth, but sometimes it’s important to remind ourselves that everything has a flip side.

I

Torn Love

Still standing close,
each on our own side of this terrible rending,
how can we see things so differently?
This little flap of skin
you keep pulling open
wants to close.

This is how cancers start—
this worrying and worrying of an old injury.
My darling. Leave it alone
and let us heal.
This is only a biopsy
of our changed love affair.

If it is cut out of us,
it will be by your decision;
and no number of late-night arguments
will ever change that fact.
What you need to remember
the next morning,
you will remember.

If it were up to me,
we would still be friends,
but if you need an enemy
to console you in your actions,
I guess I must be that too.
I always was a figment
of your imagination.
Believe that
if it makes this easier for you.

II

Cicatrix

I know better than you
what lies buried under
my healed-over self.

The raised part of me
grown to protect the wound
creates this distance
that I once warned you of.

I need to thicken that part of me
where part of you remains,
and if for this time you gasp for air,
it is my thick skin growing over you,
like an orb spider winding you in my web

until you become
the one in me hidden so deep
that even you
believe you’ve disappeared.

A Bio Challenge

26 Replies

The Prompt: Flash Talk—You’re about to enter a room full of strangers, where you will have exactly four minutes to tell a story that would convey who you really are. What’s your story?

A Bio Challenge

My name is Judy. I live alone.
I love computers but hate the phone.
I’m addicted to the Internet
and the literary set.

I’m allergic to dogs. They make me wheeze,
but I still have two to make me sneeze.
(Along with a cat who comes to eat
but spends the day across the street.)

I like to write and do my art.
I’m not very pretty, but I’m sorta smart.
I live on a mountain all up and down
above a little Mexican town.

When I wake up, before I stray,
I write a poem every day.
Upon my back, I tap with zest
with my computer on my chest,

for I believe without a doubt
that when I move, ideas fall out
before I get them to the screen.
If I leave bed, they’re never seen.

I dance sometimes, and volunteer,
but spend too much time on my rear.
I’m a member of four writing groups
that keep me jumping through their hoops.

I write a blog to please myself
but my novel sits there on the shelf,
three chapters long, not any more.
When November comes, I’ll start on four!

So about me, I think I’m through.
I want to come read about you!
Please use my “comments” box to show
some things about you I don’t know.

One fact or two, (they needn’t rhyme)
would make me feel more than sublime.
If sixty people read this post,
then sixty comments I hope to boast.

And I promise that I’ll reply to
each person, be there lots or few.
I’ll write a separate rhyme for each
that won’t pontificate or preach.

The more unusual your fact,
the odder with be my “react.”
A mere two-liner for each one—
Please comment now and join the fun!