My First Unofficial Challenge Prize

I can’t begin to tell y’all how excited I was to win my first unofficial challenge, linked below and definitely worth clicking/tapping for the original artwork from Gabriel. Worth reading, too.

‘Incidentally, the poem I entered in this challenge was also my first top story, roughly two months after I began posting my work here (after my lengthy writing drought, I was a bit gun shy). I’m beginning to think it might be a good poem.

I remember writing it at work, while my students were working on their narrative essays. It was a remote synchronous class, and we met in Teams, the students from the comfort of their homes, me from campus. The VA office on the second floor. It was my first term teaching from there, and I liked it, being in an empty classroom to teach a virtual class feels cavernous, and I was glad of the closer walls. There’s something sad about an empty classroom.

I think it was also the first poem I composed within this site, instead of pasting from Google docs, where I had been writing since March (2025). I remember it being another turning point—I wasn’t consciously thinking, had simply found a space that allowed the words to flow, and I trusted them to carry the thoughts I was struggling with, didn’t second guess myself or ponder over words and sounds; I simply let it flow.

Perhaps none of this sounds scary, but it was. I was taking risks I had forgotten the exhilaration of, and it felt crazy and free and liberating, like being in a river on a summer day, like (though I didn’t know it yet) drawing on my skin with magic markers. Sorry, can’t show the artwork from that, as my tits were my canvas, but I did draw a beautiful forest and river. Nothing worthy of critical acclaim from anyone who isn’t in live with me, and that’s like 99.999999999999% of the world, give or take a few decimal points—not doing the math on that, just avoiding a weird line break.

What’s the part of the equation that makes these things scary? The common factor is trust, which is the hardest thing in the world for me, as it usually ends with some part of me getting broken, more often than not, my heart. Sometimes so badly it wounds my spirit, but carbon doesn’t crumble under pressure, it hardens and becomes a diamond. However, to make it pretty, you have to tumble the hell out of it, then cut it, again and again with the hardest substance in earth. That’s the cool thing about diamonds—the only (non-laser—light follows different rules) thing that can cut a diamond is another diamond. I’m not there yet, don’t know that I want facets cut into me, might rather stay rough, though I’ve still got some tumbles left in me. And I’ve heard tell that I could stand a little polishing, at least around the edges.

Back to my point, if I have one. I’m proud of the progress my process and progress have made. No, you didn’t read that wrong, and I’m fully aware that I said progress twice (and didn’t put quotes around it here). Despite Christian Nolan editorializing and tampering with meaning in The Odyssey, the journey is the main point, but destination matters, almost as much as the company we keep. I’m in good company here, and I’m enjoying building my birds and watching y’all’s birds fly while I’m at it.

Cheers!🥂

You can check out Gabriel’s work here:

And here’s that pivotal poem:

Thank you for reading and being on this journey.