It’s April & spring isn’t springing outside yet. In the middle of South Texas, it has been cloudy now for almost a week. Sometimes it’s windy out. Other days, like today, the humidity creeps for what will for sure be another hot hot summer. For the past couple of months, I’ve been thinking of situations/things we have no control over. As someone who likes control & spirals easily over anything, it has taken me a lot of continuous work to learn to let go—to bend with whatever comes my way.

For today’s first prompt I want to invite you to reflect & write with me on what surrendering looks like. How do you surrender, what do you surrender against, how does surrender keep impacting your life, what has been the greatest situation/thing you’ve surrendered to, have you ever surrendered to yourself?

“Look, we are not unspectacular things.

We’ve come this far, survived this much. What

would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.

No, to the rising tides.”

-Excerpt from “Dead Stars” by Ada Limón

Last month I went on a date (I think). Dating in my 30’s is somehow more complicated than dating in my 20’s (maybe my standards are higher, who knows) but at the beginning of the date, I was surprised the man kissed me. Then the rest of the night he didn’t seem into me & when he took out his phone to look at social media I was like Forreal gurrrl?! I don’t know if the kiss was out of nervous when I walked up to him or if it was genuine but it did stay with me the next day. I’m thinking today of how little moments catch us off guard when we think we got it all figured out.

For today’s prompt I invite you to take a moment of surprise & begin your poem with it instead of leading the audience/reader into the moment later. Sometimes when I write I feel like I have to lead my audience/reader into the surprise moment in my work but that’s not always the case. Think of what is gained by beginning your poem with a shock factor, a revelation, a punch, etc. & think of how this moment of surprise will give you access into entering your poem & how it will unravel. Ultimately, your first two lines or so must contain the biggest risk/vulnerability of your poem. This may sound easy to being with a powerful moment but don’t be fooled as most of the time we write towards moments in our poems that are revealing/impactful rather than beginning with them. & remember to always use your title as an extension into your poetry (take a look below at Sasha Pimentels poem & how she uses her title then moves on to her revelation). Give it a try!

For Want of Water

an ant will drown himself, his body submerging / into ease, his mandibles, head, antennae, baptized. How lovely / to lose your senses to the cup of your want. A boy / drags his mother’s body across the desert, her fluids rising / to God in order to quench her skin.

Beginning excerpt of Sasha Pimentel’s poem “For Want of Water”

Growing up I found myself dreaming of a being an actor. I wanted to be a star in the Mexican Telenovelas. I’d always say to myself, I can do that! I would go outside & in the backyard I’d pretend to be one of the leading actors. I would recite lines or iconic telenovela moments. I always wanted to know what it felt like to play someone else. Then for more than half of my life I found myself playing a straight man (I know I was gagged too, where is my Oscar). Within writing I’ve been experimenting with persona poems—to reach into someone else’s point of view & write from their angle is a lot harder. I always ask myself what would a tree want to say, what would the wind speak of, what would a celebrity say in a poem, etc.

For today’s prompt, I ask you to step into the shoes of someone you wouldn’t expect to have something to say. For example, in 2008 Patricia Smith published Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press) a collection of poems which tracks Hurricane Katrina’s development & destruction back in August of 2005. Take a peek below where Patricia Smith writes a persona poem in the POV of Hurricane Katrina. Happy writing!

Katrina

I was birthed restless and elsewhere

gut dragging and bulging with ball lightning, slush,

broke through with branches, steel

I was bitch-monikered, hipped, I hefted

a whip rain, a swirling sheet of grit.

Scraping toward the first of you, hungering for wood, walls,

unturned skin. With shifting and frantic mouth, I loudly loved

the slow bones

of elders, fools, and willows.

Patricia Smith, “Katrina [I was birthed restless and everywhere]” from Blood Dazzler.

In 2018, I became obsessed with family lineage. As a first generation Mexican American, it is hard to trace my family in Mexico mainly because there are no records & because of family dynamics. I can only trace my father’s family line back to his mother & father. Past them everything else is lost. My mother’s family line is a little clearer mainly because everyone has lived in the same small rancho. I still wonder if my ancestors & extended family see me as foreign. To be able to go back & find my origin is something I dream about today. But how? Who knows, maybe I’m my own origin story. Afterall, I am the narrator & protagonist of it, right?

For today’s poetry prompt, I ask you to trace your own lineage. What does it mean to carry a family’s last name as legacy, what does it mean to be able to name all or none, where does your line begin & where do theirs end, does your last name define your identity, how is your own lineage tied to those before you, do you know your origin? One of my favorite poems is “Nguyễn” by Hieu Minh Nguyen from their poetry collection Not Here. Check out an excerpt of it below.

“The origin, he once told me, is simple:

the name was a mask our ancestors hid behind

to escape retribution. After the dynasty crumbled

families across the empire unified under the name

under the fear of a flag

planted through a face.”

Excerpt from the poem “Nguyễn” by Hieu Minh Nguyen found in their poetry collection Not Here (Coffee House Press)

I’m always in search of movies which make me feel deeply & scratch my brain in the right place (iykyk). In 2022, I sat at an AMC movie theater with two of my good friends & we watched together Everything Everywhere All at Once. *Spoiler Alert* (but also its 2024 WHO HASN’T SEEN THIS MOVIE) To say the movie captivated me is an understatement. This movie is filled with so many twist & turns, I was gasping at every revelation, I cried through almost the whole second part (who knew rocks would make me sob), & I left the movie theater feeling fulfilled. The following days, I kept going back to the movie & recalling those wow moments. I knew I wanted to write a poem inspired by the movie, but I didn’t know where to start. The following two weeks I went to the movies & watched it again, this time I paid more attention to the questions the movie proposed. One scene which caught my attention was towards the end of the movie (where the fighting scene takes place at the office). Waymond tells Evelyn “Be kind” as Evelyn is fighting against Jobu Tupaki’s henchmen. Waymond continues to plead Evelyn to stop fighting & reminding her this isn’t her. As Evelyn gets ready for combat, she tells Waymond, “I’m learning to fight like you.” Evelyn then goes on to adapt a new fighting style of handling violence with tenderness.

Today’s prompt inspired my own poem “This is How I Fight” which meets violence with questions, linage, fragments, and tenderness (you can find a link to it on my publication page). So, tell me reader, how do you fight?

There’s nothing like getting ghosted from someone you’ve been seeing for a while. Once I was seeing a man (like going out with him, not apparition wise y’all) & from my POV it was going well. For over three months I woke up to cute messages which later gave me icks because I told myself why are you all giddy over simple words a man sends you. We would go on cute dates too & he would complement me & hold my hand. Well, this man ghosted me. He vanished out of thin air. The sudden loss of him made me question my own sanity, did I make him up, was he real, did I do something wrong, etc. He later reappeared to tell me he wasn’t ready for a relationship. A year later, Ariana Granda released her album thank u, next where she gave a new meaning to the word “ghostin” comparing it to her late boyfriend Mac Miller and instantly became one of my favorite songs.

For today’s prompt, I invite you to write about a type of ghosting you’ve experienced whether it’s supernatural, romantic, etc. Here is the tricky part to the poem, you must give it a new meaning to the term of ghosting. For example, in the poem “I Want” by Paul Tran published in Split This Rock, Tran refers to a man who comes over for a hook up. The poem begins with the man having haunting characteristics, but the twist is the speaker in the poem is the one doing the haunting. The speaker isn’t afraid to “SAY IT PLAIN.”

“each time he thrashes his weight

into my skull. Like a ghost,

I pull the white sheets around me

until I disappear completely. I pretend

I’m not there. I don’t want to look at him

but he makes me. SAY IT PLAIN.

I dig my nails through the seams. I watch

him watch me watch him stroke my hair.

I know it isn’t him but his kindness

that hurts me to the point of death.

I WANT TO SAY IT PLAIN. I don’t know

how else to explain what happened

except to—SAY IT, SAY IT

PLAIN—say it

the only way I can.”

Excerpt from “SAY IT PLAIN” by Paul Tran published in Split This Rock

This morning I’m thinking of my middle school years. How I hid behind my girlfriends so I wouldn’t get bullied. Even back then it has always been easier for me to make friends with women than with men. All my three years of middle school I spent it with two sets of girlfriends. During lunch we would all purchase sour pickles & Hot Cheetos. We’d mix them in a tray & eat. One of my friends, who I will call R, always made me laugh the hardest. Something about her was gravitating. I think it was in the way she lived so freely & with no regards for what others thought of her. She was wild & fearless. I always thought to myself “When I grow up, I want to be like her.” After middle school, we all went to separate high schools. I lost contact with her during the summer & a quarter into my freshman year of high school I received a call from her. We caught up & stayed on the phone for like 4 hours. She said she wanted to come over during the weekend so I could burn her a mix CD & I agreed. The weekend went by & she never called. Then during the week one of our mutual friends DMed me through Myspace to ask for my number. When she called me, she was sobbing. I asked, “What’s wrong?” & with a voice so present I can still hear it she said, “R killed herself.” R’s death was my third death or grief I experienced in the span of two years. I remember seeing her at the viewing & thinking, “How could she do this to herself? She was full of life!” Grief is like that. In a way that we will never get answers to death. I don’t have any pictures of me with R. I only have a class picture & a picture of her with another of our mutual friends. I think about R from time to time & she is one of the reasons why I’m so outspoken. I remember she once told me, “You got to speak! Ain’t no one gonna speak for you.”

For today I invite you to write a poem about your own grief. Except, here is the twist make it into a How to Poem. Give the reader/audience instructions on how to make something while adding the layer of grief. In the poem “How to Make Pancakes for a Dead Boy” by Joan Kwon Glass, she brings the recipe for pancakes while writing about her own loved one. Check it out below!

How to Make Pancakes for a Dead Boy

For Frankie

First, crack the egg

into a sinkhole of grief.

Measure the ingredients,

then stir, until the lumps

no longer resemble bullets.

Try not to see him

standing at your side

grinning at age six,

front teeth missing,

pulling on your sleeve

to whisper with a grin:

“Auntie, please add

extra chocolate chips.”

Run the electric beaters.

until you can no longer hear

his voice as a toddler

or the snap and boom

of the first and last shot

he would ever fire.

Pour the batter

onto the griddle,

and while the pancakes rise,

read his suicide note again.

Try to make sense of it

and get nowhere.

Cut the pancakes

into bite-sized pieces.

Sweeten the plate

as you scream.

How to Make Pancakes for a Dead Boy by Joan Kwon Glass, Small Harbor Publishing

Today while everyone was out in the park, streets, & outside their houses waiting for the eclipse to happen, I thought about my childhood. How any chance I could get I would want to spend outside playing. In the house I grew up I never ran out of space to play outside. There was a huge backyard with many trees to climb, there was a swing, there were junk yard truck where we would get into & pretend we were being chased. My siblings & my imagination had no limit in that backyard. Its wild to see how time has changed & now mostly everyone stays inside. Every day I go on walks & see less & less people playing outside. My favorite memory is going to what used to be the downtown park in my city. There was a huge wooden playground. In it & around it I would play hide-n-seek.

For today’s poetry prompt, I invite you to write an ode to one of your favorite childhood memories of playing outside. There is no tricks or twists in today’s prompt, except let this poem come out of love for your childhood.

Isn’t survival such an ironic piece to our existence? My friends & I have discussions about survival frequently & about how cruel the world is. Today I’m thinking about all the obstacles we face daily but also how those obstacles keep pushing us to want to be/do better. Growing up with undocumented parents, our goal as a family was always how we were going to survive the next day/week. We never really counted for months or years. I remember my dad taking all sorts of odd jobs throughout the year to make ends meet & for that I’ll always be grateful. It wasn’t until somewhere in my 20’s where I began to realize everything I’ve been doing was based on a survival response/method. Even as an educator who gets paid monthly, I must budget for all my expenses with anticipation. Any unforeseen expense can be a cause for trouble. I’m thinking of how my parents moved in this world/society from one day to the next existing only for a day to make it to the next. I’m examining & reflecting on what survival looks for me. How its engrained in my head to not rest because there is no time for resting when work has to be done.

For today’s prompt, I invite you to write a litany for survival. How does the litany work as song to keep going?

“For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children’s mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours;”

Excerpt from “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde

In therapy I learned there are certain patterns one takes from childhood into adulthood for different reasons. Some people may not ask for help as adults because they’ve had to figure it out on their own since they were kids. Others may not know how to speak up because maybe they were put down growing up. Triggers and trauma are found around us all the time. I once asked my therapist when I would feel better. She said everyone has their journey & some take more than others. My anxiety manifested itself back in 2017. It came out of nowhere and has overstayed its visit in my body since then. Before anxiety, I was a different person. I was freer, more of a risk taker, more energetic. However, now that I’m more still I have also been able to reflect more. My anxiety has been both a curse & a blessing. Today, it is much more manageable. I’ve been able to reclaim certain parts of my life back & maybe one day I will reclaim all of it back. For now, I’m patient with myself & above all I try not to be too hard with myself.

For today’s prompt I invite you to reflect about a certain pattern you have carried with you from childhood to adulthood. Explore it, ask yourself why I am this way, why can’t I let it go, is this pattern out of survival? Below find an excerpt from Eugenia Leigh’s poem “My Whole Life I Was Trained to Deny Myself” which explores part of the questions I mentioned above.

“Once, I followed a man into a hurricane

minutes before it stripped half of Manhattan

from power. I trailed behind him

when the transformer line exploded

and the night sky flashed a ghastly

green like God smothering the city

with a neon sheet. Then the traffic lights,

streetlights, and every last lamp through

every window flickered then snapped,

and in that alarming darkness, the city shrank

into a closet so cramped I couldn’t breathe.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about how memory works. I’ve always wondered how others look into their memory. Do they see their memory in images; is there sound; are there smells; can they still feel the texture of a memory; or does the taste still haunt them? I’ve never asked this question to anyone (except an ex-partner) but I always hear others say, “I remember when Y would do…” & I always imagine these individuals having an image come up in their minds. I’ve recently experienced the death of my tia in my 30’s & I remember her in so many ways each day from how she liked to drink her coffee, how the sound of her footsteps with her cowboy boots could be heard from the next room over, or how much she loved different scented body lotions. I’ve also been thinking about my childhood & how those memories have their own shape too. How is it that memories stay with us for so long they seem to haunt us?

For today’s prompt I invite you to explore your own memory. How do you remember? Do your memories have sound? Do your memories have smells? Etc. The twist for this prompt is to write a memory poem incorporating a piece of fruit. Let this fruit be the thread & main image throughout your poem. In the poem “Persimmons” by Li-Young Lee does exactly that! Read an excerpt below.

“In sixth grade Mrs. Walker

slapped the back of my head

and made me stand in the corner

for not knowing the difference

between persimmon and precision.

How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.

Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.

Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one

will be fragrant. How to eat:

put the knife away, lay down newspaper.

Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.

Chew the skin, suck it,

and swallow. Now, eat

the meat of the fruit,

so sweet,

all of it, to the heart.”

What does it mean to truly look in the mirror & look at yourself. To study yourself in depth. It’s ironic how a mirror gives us access to how we view ourselves but never beyond what’s inside of one. When I was in my teens, I spent a lot of time looking in the mirror wondering how everyone else saw me. I’d sit there and pop pimples, look at my teeth, look at the shape of my body, etc. In my 20’s, I looked at the mirror even more. I was obsessed with myself. In my late 20’s to where I am now, I avoid mirrors, but I am also still obsessed with mirrors & the duality of what they could represent. When I was a little kid, I would lay a mirror down & pretend I could walk into a different realm. A friend of mine covers all their mirrors each night because they believe evil spirits can come out at night & watch you sleep. Abuela says mirrors were a luxury for her growing up, only the wealthy had them in her rancho. I still believe mirrors hold memories & secrets.

For today’s prompt, I invite to write a poem where you observe a mirror, what does a mirror hold, how does a mirror speak, how does a mirror see you? In Charles Simic’s poem “Mirrors at 4 a.m.” published in Poetry Foundation, he explores these questions among others (see excerpt below).

“You must come to them sideways

In rooms webbed in shadow,

Sneak a view of their emptiness

Without them catching

A glimpse of you in return.”

I was asked yesterday if it feels odd returning home after not living in my hometown for about twelve years. The truth is it is odd. Time transforms people & the places around me. There is so much that has changed in my hometown from million dollars houses for sale in the barrio, to coffee shops less than ten minutes away, to new restaurants. Although I do like having access to things near me, I’m sad about how my neighborhood is changing. People have changed too. It’s odd realizing my parents have aged, my friends are married or have kids, everything is blooming with time. I never really understood the phrase of time waits for no one until I moved away & then came back years later.

Today I invite you to write a poem about your neighborhood. What has changed, how has time evolved your surroundings, what haunts you in the corners of familiar streets? In Joseph Rio’s poem “For Henry’s Bar” where the speaker searches for their grandpa in their neighborhood while bring the speaker’s neighborhood to life. Check out the excerpt below published in Poetry.

“I don’t knock. I stay on my bike. I realize

I’m not ready to go home and like most men

in this town, grandpa doesn’t want to be found.

I keep riding. I go North toward what’s left

of the railroad tracks. There’s a grey cloud

moving across the sky and I imagine I’m

chasing it, I’m right behind it. I keep riding

until it’s all oleanders and stacked railroad ties.

I never thought I could go this far. I get off

the seat and stand. I glide next to a forgotten

caboose. I imagine I’m the howling train now.

My tires kick dust as they crunch over the dry dry dirt.”

I always struggle to write any type of love poem. There are probably many layers as to why I can’t write one. Not that I haven’t experienced love but maybe because I’m still waiting for love to surprise me or sway me in this life. I have been in love before & I hold close some of those tender moments I experienced. Maybe I’m not ready to write about those moments, maybe I want to keep them for myself, maybe those moments push me each day to remind me love is real.

If it isn’t clear yet, today’s prompt is about love. Write a love poem. One of my personal favorites is “The View From Up Here” by Major Jackson. Look at the excerpt below.

“When you speak, I feel unburied

yet hear still the dead of my own house.

No one cares that I count your eyeblinks.

No one cares about all this hard water.

The hours are tall as polar caps,

and I quicken inside your name.”

Ever since I can remember I’ve always believed in magic. Sometimes I would just sit outside & imagine there were other realms hidden in the trees. I would ask the trees to tell me their secrets. At night is when I would hear the most sounds. My family has always believed in the legends of La Llorona, Lechuzas, La Mano Pachona, & the list goes on. To believe in the fantastical is to honor those legends passed down through storytelling. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve asked myself how much of those legends am I? Do I have characteristics as those monsters do? How are we more alike than different? Etc.

For today’s prompt I invite you to write a poem where the monster & you are alike in more ways than one. In Saba Keramati’s poem “Chimera” the alikeness off a magical creature & the speaker. What does it mean to look at a monster in the eyes & call them your name?

“One morning on the radio I hear a woman’s voice singing: woman is a changeling, always shifting shape. I am left to ponder a limitude of allowed selves. I was born two things at once, thought that made me rare. In turn, thought that made me important in some way. But here it is, clear over the air waves: my own thoughts in someone else’s mouth. So what’s left? I admit I am interested in my own thinking, obsessed with discovery and answers because: How devastating to be wrong about who you are. Did god give us all the same questions? The way I break a promise is to forget myself. How monstrous to be always so confused. How animal. Oh, there is more of me on the inside. Oh, it is eating me alive.”

Excerpt from “Chimera” by Saba Keramati published in Literary Hub

Sometimes I wish there were instructions for living. You know, like a how to but about life. When my parents had me, they were 25 & they themselves didn’t know what they were doing. I don’t think even I know what I’m doing. Somedays I spend all morning in bed thinking about this life. Lately, I’ve been watching the sun set. There’s comfort in knowing a day has ended—the pressure to do something today is gone. Then I get anxiety because I reflect back & think “I just wasted a whole day, A WHOLE DAY!” If instructions were given, then at least I’d be on path knowing the ending but isn’t that kind of boring. I don’t mean instructions as to who I am because I know who I am, what I stand for, what I’m willing to risk to live. I don’t know what it means to live yet but I know what it means to survive. *sigh*

Enough about me rambling on and on. For today’s prompt I invite you to create a poem on instructions for living. Give it your best shot.

Erika L. Sanchez wrote a poem “Instructions on Living” published in The New Yorker, here is an excerpt of it:

“It was the way summer hunted me:

a sequence of instructions

in the folds of a flower.

How do I explain the hatred of the sun,

the terrible wonder of being alive?”

I remember when I lost my whole binder of Pokémon cards. I was a mess. I was down bad. I was about eight or so. I had worked hard on my collection & for it just to disappear. When I tried to rebuild my collection, it wasn’t the same. I’ve been thinking of all the things we lose in this lifetime. From the smallest thing like Pokémon cards to loved ones to a house to a car to lineage. For some of us we’ve known loss our whole lives for others loss may be a foreign concept but one thing in common is that we will all experience loss in this life.

For today’s prompt I’m thinking of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Art of Losing” & how in each turn of the poem the intensity of losing builds & builds. Write a poem where the intensity of losing something minimal to something greater increase & increases. Take a look at an excerpt below from “The Art of Losing” by Elizabeth Bishop.

“Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”

Sometimes a lot of my work begins with just writing random lines throughout my week, month, or year. In my notepad on my phone, I have hundreds of different lines I keep. Sometimes I transfer a few of them into a notebook & scratch them out once I use them. Other times I just leave them on the phone & as I use them, I delete them. Most of the time none of the lines make sense together until I begin making a poem & adding technique, images, etc. to the lines. Sometimes the lines themselves do come together & create something. It’s like a puzzle & I try to fit the best pieces that work together.

My challenge for you is to begin writing lines throughout your day, week, month, & year then begin piecing a poem together once you feel called to create a poem. Add your techniques & additional lines on the fly if necessary.

For a while I was obsessed with how water works. I researched for a few years how rivers have layers or how there are currents even under the surface. It’s fascinating to me how water is a body but it does not have consciousness. However, water has memory. Buildings, homes, roads have been built over or around water but water remembers its path & sooner when it rains too much or water accumulates water will flow back through the path it remembers. Water can also be either a solid, liquid, or gas. It can literally become almost anything. So much more can be said about water but I’ll stop here, haha.

For today’s prompt I invite you to write a poem about water & memory. If you want to challenge yourself then incorporate water’s form into your poem whether it be a solid, liquid, or gas.

Growing up I always felt invisible, mostly because I’ve always felt like I’ve never been truly seen. Growing up as a Jehovah Witness, I was treated different in school. Most of my elementary years I spent at the library because that’s where I was sent during holiday parties or anything to that extent. In the library I thought I would be bored all alone but I soon found myself surrounded by the magic in books. The librarian & library saved me as a child. I remember reading all The Magic Tree House Series books, Frankenstein, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe Series, among so many others. I’ve always felt safe & seen in a library. My dream is to someday own a house and make one of the rooms into my own personal library.

For today’s prompt, I invite you to write a poem in which you make your safe space the main setting for your poem.

My parents migrated to the USA in their teens. My mom arrived first then shortly after my father came. They’ve worked in various jobs from house cleaners, construction, packaging meat products, selling items at la pulga, line preps at restaurants, washing dishes, & the list goes on & on. I’ve always admired how they pushed forward—how even when they saw no outing to their current problem, they reinvented way & exits to survive, to push through. More than once I’ve wondered what they left behind in their country—family, culture, language, clothes, food, etc. I’ve never have had the courage to ask them what they left behind because I don’t want to trigger their trauma. Instead, I let them talk when they feel like sharing & I listen closely.

In Susan Nguyen’s poem “The Body as a Series of Questions” the speaker explores questions & asks their parent(s) questions about diaspora & displacement. For today’s poem, I invite you to write a poem in which the speaker asks questions they wouldn’t dare ask their lineage/parent(s). Here is a small excerpt from Nguyen’s poem:

“What did you leave when crossing the bridge? From what materials was the bridge constructed?

When did you first recoil

from your mouth? Do you feel safe wrecking language?

What movie theatre did you travel through? What apple?”

Imaging another life for me is something I used to dream about consistently growing up. What would happen if my parents never left Mexico, if I was straight, if I didn’t have the opportunities I had to grow, what if I had told him I love him, etc. There’s always a doubt in all of us of what could have been. I try not to live so much in wonder because it scary to imagine or dream about where one could be at this very moment.

For today’s poem I invite you to write an “in another life” poem of what your life could have been. Use the title as an extension of a line to enter the poem. For example, in Janel Pineda’s poem “In Another Life” the speaker imagines life in El Salvador without violence. Check out an excerpt of it below.

“The war never happened but somehow you and I still exist. Like obsidian,

we know only the memory of lava and not the explosion that created

us. Forget the gunned-down church, the burning flesh, the cabbage soup.

There is no bus. There is no border. There is no blood. There are

only sweet corn fields and mango skins. The turquoise house and clotheslines.

A heaping plate of pasteles and curtido waiting to be disappeared into our bellies.

In this life, our people are not things of silences but whole worlds bursting

into breath. Everywhere, there are children. Playing freely, clothed and clean.”

When I first moved to El Paso, Texas I didn’t know what to expect. When I went to visit the campus & look for a place to live, I saw a city surrounded by mountains & a desert. I had never lived in this type of terrain before & a part of me was excited to wake up every morning & walk to campus surrounded by mountains. In Agust of 2015, I moved to El Paso officially & I quickly found myself loving sunsets there. I have never in my life seen a sunset turn pink, orange, lavender, purple, blue & then darkness. Now I carry all of those sunsets in me.

For today’s prompt I invite you to write a poem about the landscape surrounding you. What do you love, hate, tolerate? In Jake Skeets poem “Sonoran Desert Poem” depicts the life one who lives in the desert. Check out an excerpt below:

“coming to the desert for the first time

and the night turns over a millennia before you

just say the name mountain

of mountains—make more

out of bird formations or drainage pipes

deserts build water

so drink the lightning”

It’s been a little over two months that my tia passed away. At times I feel so stuck in grief that it’s hard to see past it & into the future because well how is there a future when loved ones don’t exist anymore? Yesterday on my walk she came to mind & how much she suffered that last week of her life. I asked her to give me a sign she was okay & out of pain. When I looked around me I was surrounded by bright red cardinals. I thought to myself this is a sign. I’ve never seen so many cardinals in one place. I sobbed a little & then got myself together. I’d fear someone else would walk into my path & think “what is wrong with this guy?” But grief is like waves. It comes when we least expect it. I’ve been trying to say goodbye to loved ones & grief & at the same time it’s hard to not want to let love go. I’m trying to figure out how to turn sadness into beauty & happy moments instead.

This morning I woke up thinking of K. Iver’s poem “Because You Can’t” & how this poem chooses love over sadness. For today, I invite you to write a poem about not necessarily moving on from grief but choosing to live in love instead.

Because You Can’t by K. Iver

I stand in front of paintings a long time

and think about the bones once belonging

to you and how Egon Schiele could line

a body into movement. Because you no longer

have a shape, I’ve made a practice of nearness.

A hawk lets me stroke her mid-flight,

I let comets land in my mouth,

when they’re small enough. My lover

pushes all their weight on me because I asked.

They flatten me into astonishment.

Because nothing can astonish you, I tempt

what’s alive by doubting I could love it more.

It’s a neat trick. When I use it, raccoons

visit often, their fingers closed around mud

older than me. Missy, this is me moving on.

There’s a noon rain to get caught in and many

clavicles to behold. I wish you could see this one,

tilting across a century.

Coming to terms with my own sexuality is still an ongoing conversation within myself. Mostly because of what taught from a young age of what is seen as “bad” & because I grew up in a religion which would condemn/disown those seen different. Looking into a mirror is hard sometimes for me. When I first touched a man, I was in my early 20’s. I still remember my hand trembling & unsure if this is what I wanted to do/if this is who I am. When I fell in love with a man, I was both elated to feel this mushy feeling in me and scared. I didn’t know at the time accepting love from someone would make me feel odd or out of place. In fact it is still hard for me to receive love or praise because part of it is me not wanting the attention & the other part I can’t name it.

Today I’m reminded of the first time I saw my reflection in my 20’s at a gay club & touched the mirror only to be frightened of what I saw & where I was of all places. For today’s prompt, I invite you to write a poem about self-acceptance or about the difficulty in the relationship of accepting oneself. I’m reminded of Eduardo C. Corral’s poem “Cordoba” Check it out below.

Cordoba

In a bathroom

with turquoise walls,

my reflection bleeds. I reach

to clean, with my thumb,

an oval mirror speckled

with toothpaste

& smeared, now,

with penicillin-rich blood,

then I remember—

pull back my left hand.

I don’t touch mirrors. It’s wrong,

my father always said,

to touch a man.

I’m pretty sure dating apps aren’t new to any of us. It is the modern way to date. Just a quick profile. Then, its off into a sea of swiping right or left. Maybe you’re on Grindr and all you’re seeing are torsos blank profiles with abbreviations as names like “nsa.” For most gay men Grindr is the place to go to. Forget Bumble, Tindr, Hinge, or Chispa. Maybe Scruff. I’ve had friends who have found love on Grindr and honestly, I’m shook to my core. Like what do you mean you found love? But at the same time I’m like “You go Glenn Coco!” My friends & I joke all the time about Grindr & how hard dating has become in general. It seems like even in real life our eyes are scanning & swiping right or double tapping the fire tap. I’m not so much on the apps these days because I’d like to dream I’ll meet whoever it may be in real life.

This morning I woke up thinking about Jericho Brown’s poem “Host” & how he uses the language of apps to create a poem. For today’s prompt, I invite you to take out your dating frustration by creating a similar poem & applying app dating language. Check out the poem “Host” by Jericho Brown below.

Host

We want pictures of everything

Below your waist, and we want

Pictures of your waist. We can't

Talk right now, but we will text you

Into coitus. All thumbs. All bi

Coastal and discreet and masculine

And muscular. No whites. Every

Body a top. We got a career

To think about. No face. We got

Kids to remember. No one over 29.

No one under 30. Our exes hurt us

Into hurting them. Disease free. No

Drugs. We like to get high with

The right person. You

Got a girl? Bring your boy.

We visiting. Room at the W.

Name's D. Name's J. We Deejay.

We Trey. We Troy. We Q. We not

Sending a face. Where should we

Go tonight? You coming through? Please

Know what a gym looks like. Not much

Time. No strings. No place, no

Face. Be clean. We haven't met

Anyone here yet. Why is it so hard

To make friends? No games. You

Still coming through? Latinos only.

Blacks will do. We can take one right

Now. Text it to you. Be there next

Week. Be there in June. We not a phone

Person. We can host, but we won't meet

Without a recent pic and a real name

And the sound of your deepest voice.

Language has always been difficult for me & somehow here I am writing poems, working on other projects, & doing these reflections/prompts. However, what I mean is I’ve always felt I’m in between languages. I grew up learning Spanish first. Spanish is still the main language used in my family household. My parents understand some of it and but do not really speak it. You may be thinking how come your family never learned Spanish. That’s a good question & I haven’t had the courage to ask them. I’m assuming coming to America in your teens with nothing & no support was intimidating and scary enough to want to learn a language right away. When your life is about survival you get by with what you know. Growing up I learned English in school. However, I didn’t come into English until second grade. By then I was already intimidated too. What do you mean I’m supposed to learn everything from kinder to first grade & what you learn in second grade in one year?! Someone I did it & I was reading English by the middle of the second quarter. To this day I don’t feel confident in either language but I’m trying to make sense of how language dominates, navigates, & isolates me/us.

Because ESL was in my daily life growing up, today’s prompt goes out to ESL writers. I invite you to write an Abecedarian Poem about growing up ESL. Su Cho’s poem “Abecedarian for ESL in West Lafayette, Indiana” inspired today’s prompt. Check out her poem below.

Abecedarian for ESL in West Lafayette

A is for apples shipped fresh off the

Boat. At 2 pm we left math to go where

Children are taught

Differences between

English and English at home.

For example, Sun-Ah who named herself Sunny

Grabbed blue pills from a plastic bag,

Held the medicine in her palm. Teachers called me in—

Ibuprofen, I say. I am seven,

Just learned the word because Sunny sputtered

Korean that they’re painkillers.

Look, English was my second language but

My tongue was new.

Never had to teach me to curl my Rs

Or how to say girl, blueberries, raspberries. In second grade, I

Played Peter Rabbit’s mother rabbit, still don’t

Quite know how that happened or even

Remember what my lines were.

Still, when the Chicago Field Museum unveiled Sue

The T-Rex, I was Sue the dinosaur, before that, Sue who lived in an old shoe.

Usually I said “Yes, like the T-Rex without the useless e at the end.”

Versions of my selves in ESL exist but I was kept there, after proficiency.

Who else could translate for the teachers, my parents, and Sunny’s parents?

X was for xylophones, x-rays, and now xenophobia.

Yes, that’s too on the nose, but things on your nose are hardest to see.

Z is for a zero, zigzagging between classrooms to say she has a fever, she misses home.

After graduating high school, one of my best friends & I began to record ourselves on my MacBook. At the time, reality tv was in & we were both hungry for fame. We thought our life would be seen through YouTube and people would demand a network to make our lives into a reality tv show. We soon realized it was hard work to edit & create episodes, so we gave up. Most of our recordings were us laughing nonstop. I wonder how our lives would be if we stuck with it & created the YouTube channel. Later in my 20’s once I went to therapy, my therapist asked me about my upbringing & family. Later, I realized most of my life I’ve been surviving by dreaming I’m on a tv show. Delulu AF! Apparently trauma can cause this response where in order to escape reality you create this bubble around you & thus a main character is born & everything around one is a stage. Roll the camera!

This reminded me of Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s poem “Nuclear Fictions” so for today’s prompt I invite you to take a moment of your life & imagine it as if it was part of a reality tv show. You’re the star & everyone is watching. Keep the cameras rolling! Check out an excerpt of Castillo’s poems below.

Nuclear Fictions

We are completely miserable

but no one can tell

from the smiles on our faces.

Everyone is watching us on TV from home.

They think it’s a show about foxes.

They know we know.

We bow to the image of their desire.

It’s a game where the plastic is missing.

The world keeps coming

in and out of our coats.

The first time I went to Mexico at 12 years old, I remember looking up at night sky & seeing the stars shine so bright. I had never seen them look like that in the city. I’ve always wondered what people think about when they look up at the night sky & see the stars. If we’re all experiencing the same emotions of dreaming, haunting, escaping, or if the feeling is more comforting than anything. For me personally I can’t help to think how through all that darkness a star chooses to shine. Recently, I’ve been working on a poem about my tia who lost her battle to cancer a little over two months ago. Every time I look at the night sky & look at the stars I’m searching for a sign of her. Logically, I know there is no sign coming & I’m just another spectator but a part of me believes somewhere in between all that darkness she’s reaching out.

For today’s prompt I invite you to write a poem & title it When I See the Stars in the Night Sky after Joy Priest’s poem “When I See the Stars in the Night Sky” which was inspired from Ocean Vuong’s essay on metaphor & title of his poetry collection. The goal of the poem is to write into the darkness, what do you see when you look into the night sky, what is reaching out to you? Read Joy Priests poem “When I see the Stars in the Night Sky” below.

When I see the Stars in the Night Sky

I think of Whitney Houston in her sequined glamour

She’s centerstage It’s 1988 Her head

Thrown back against a black backdrop She is the only thing

glowing So distant from us in the universe

of her voice She is already dying when

I hear her sing the first time When I slip inside

my rhinestone leotard white tights Before a mic

My vocal chords are still elastic Vibrating harpstring

Not yet sclerotic with unlovely smoke and shame

I’m drawn to Whitney like a cardinal on a branch

in winter Beauty too bright for camouflage Her story

a constellation twinned with mine. I love myself

because of her. Our sweet lip sweat sparkling in the flame

light. I went home inside myself too. The world became so small.

Secrets collapsing my life into a vacuum. To burn a little longer—

Whitney, you know no one is coming—you must save yourself.

Readers, this is it the last post of the month. I was talking to a friend this weekend through facetime & we were laughing about how funny life is. How one moment you think your path is laid out in front of you & you know where it’s heading but then it doesn’t go there. In many ways all our lives are a metaphor for an unpaved road. We don’t know how far we will go in this life nor what the ride there looks like. The only thing we know is right now. In our conversation my friend mentioned how they have been doing a new morning ritual. Every morning, they wake up & name 10 things they are grateful for. This put a lot of things in perspective for me because I do tend to forget to be grateful for my own unpaved road & I focus on the past & future. It’s easy to dwell on the past & look at everything that hasn’t gone right but to be grateful that’s bravery for me.

For this last prompt of the month, I invite you to create a poem expressing gratitude for what you have, will have, or where you’re going. This is a challenge for myself as well as I tend to write sad poems.

Thank you to those who followed this journey. I hope some writing came out of these prompts. May you continue to find poetry in every breath.