In this entry, I just want to highlight two poems that I wrote in the summer because compared to the summer of 2022 (can you believe it is already February?), I feel as though my writing capabilities and scope have broadened. Though the current school year has been challenging, I've grown in many ways, and as a sort of self-celebration, posted below are two poems you can read and compare to my more recent pieces/publications (seen in my updated projects tab!!) Hope you enjoy and laugh to yourself at the messy parts of these unedited pieces :)
Round Two
The first day of the week is always chess,
the angular pieces shifted about the board
as the land and people move with,
each calculated nudge
Black and white squares,
stand-ins for pieces shaped like horses and
towers
Two men barter over a world awash in grays
they play for hours,
hard plastic chairs squirming, bets piling
chests gasping for breath under their thick suits
paled ashen hair, painted-over faces drawing on,
the factory smoke fueling their
cigarettes
Today is round two
the men sit, one takes out a HasbroTM box,
beginning battleship hands encased in white gloves,
Process of elimination
one looks up, swallowing,
his faint whiskers twitching above his
lips
They place paperweights on their board to keep,
tiny figurines anticipating to topple the mountains from toppling themselves
meaty fingers hovering over a doomed spot on the board,
he misses the tanker ship but where the red pin fits onto its peg
BOOM
a dot on a map where corpses pile up to form a bridge across the sea
explosions
it’s all about strategy, my friend
Better luck next time
Tomorrow it rains,
and the next day a new player sits
on the opposite end of the table
they drink distilled wine and lower their balding heads
Round one,
begins
Forgetting
there once was a time when I forgot how to breathe
stop thinking, stop thinking
and the more I thought, the more my lungs contracted,
but refused to expand
there once was a time when I forgot how to smile
stop thinking, stop thinking
but the noises in my head fought for their dictatorship,
my smile was too lopsided and heavy
there once was a time when I forgot my name,
keep thinking, keep thinking
the words were there but the meaning was lost
Why am I here, again?
Just as another reminder, please check out the updated version of my 'projects' tab to see what I've been up to lately! If you have thoughts about the poems or any other posts you'd be interested in reading, please share them in the comments. Let's broaden our horizons together ;D