Prose
Beneath the Willow Tree
The first time Noah saw the girl beneath the willow tree, she was sketching the sky like it might disappear any second. It was the middle of July, and the park was hot and green, full of kids screaming and sprinklers spinning in suburban rhythm. But under the oldest willow, a girl sat alone with a pencil, a notebook, and a thousand-yard stare that looked right through time.
By Shakil Sorkarabout a year ago in Poets
The Happy Feat!
The Happy Feat! There are certain situations in life which, though harrowing, we cannot walk away from without ruining any possibility of future happiness, for the degree to which our decisions will haunt us will always outweigh the fleeting joys in which we engage to escape the screeching ghost of the past.
By C. Rommial Butlerabout a year ago in Poets
The Clockmaker’s Gift
In the heart of a fog-drenched town nestled between the mountains and the sea, stood a little clock shop that defied the passing of time. It was not a place most people noticed, even if they walked by it every day. The wood-paneled sign simply read: Avery's Timepieces, and in the dust-speckled window sat a curious array of ticking machines—some no larger than a coin, others towering like soldiers frozen in brass.
By Shakil Sorkarabout a year ago in Poets
Ions of the Ocean Birds of a Feather
Today upon awakening I heard Sweetie Bird, my parakeet tweet. I turned on the news! Although I do not live by the ocean in Riverside, I am addicted to the ocean as a powerful source of positive energy. The song was in my head all morning. So, I wrote it down as poetry turning it into a song to accompany the video story. This is not about me! It is about creating a time for meditation in this chaotic dystopian world on Earth in the year 2025. I used a lot of my photos and videos as well as my routine animation from my and wild imagination from my dreams. It is not about me! It is about humanity.
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli about a year ago in Poets
I am whoever you want
May 15, 2:20am So I’ll be the friend who proofreads your emails, and the one to mediate an argument to which I have no ties, and the one who makes a present instead of buying it. I’ll be somebody you like, you invite to everything but don’t expect to show up, and I’ll be there if the crackling in my legs hasn’t gone through vessels and veins. I’ll be the friend who takes photos from different angles and deletes the bad ones, and I won’t tell you that the sun makes your skin look like sorbet, or how I never wanted to write your resignation or give away that necklace for your special occasion. I’ll be someone who adores you for the time spent together, wishes you happy birthday and tries to mean it, and I’ll be the one to give you advice that needs deciphering when all you wanted was enablement. You’ll keep me around because you like how my brain works, and I’ll keep you around because I don’t have a desire to change in any real way. We’ll keep each other for future reference and reach out with a blessing once a month, and I won’t answer your calls because I’m massaging the muscles in my thighs and trying to remember how to walk again.
By Olivia Dodgeabout a year ago in Poets
Love, Leaves
4/12/25 Geography is strange. I am here but I was there and you are never as far as I thought you were. I’m not allowed to love you anymore. Lots of things are strange. The itch in my palm. The ire in my stomach. Where do you feel your emotions— on the map, in a traffic light? In your throat, on your scalp? Bugs and hemispheres, electricity and flem— it doesn’t matter what it is if you don’t know where it’s from, if the last time you drew that house from memory it didn’t come close to the real thing. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, because the lights went out and the carpet had too many stains to make back the deposit. It’s a twelve hour drive, for God’s sake. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, so I’m giving my love to state lines, where the directions are tricky but I can’t blame anyone but me if the tire goes flat and I sleep under the stars with nothing but an itch in my palm to remind me that love, when it’s leaving, looks farther than it actually is.
By Olivia Dodgeabout a year ago in Poets
A Room That Forgot How to Echo
The clock in the hallway hadn’t ticked in three years. But Mia still wound it every Sunday morning, like muscle memory that refused to forget. The same way she left the porch light on at night. The same way she kept his shoes by the door.
By Shakil Sorkarabout a year ago in Poets
