How You Know Me

The words on the paper are like a chart, showing my mood on any given week. Every week I participate in a writing group at the Phoenix Art Awakenings studio. If anything shows me, it's my writing. Even given the writing prompts that don't seem so telling, I create a piece that is a mirror of how I feel. Limericks, for example:

March 4, 2008 -- The prompt given was to create limericks using the words windows and gates.

The windows were dirty with snot

And my drapes were stuck in a knot

I sounded real proud

As I called out aloud

"You know that you're gonna get caught!"

I knew of a yard full of flowers

That had lots of magical powers

They kept the gates closed

And stuck up their nose

Until they got flooded with showers

March 25, 2008 -- The same prompt with the words bags and closets.

The bags are under my eyes

I guess that's not a surprise

I stayed up all night

A terror to fight

And now that thing's bigger in size

It comes out of closets by day

And always gets in my way

It makes me so sad

It makes me feel bad

What it is, I really can't say

And other pieces...

March 8, 2008 -- Write a poem or short story using the line "At first I thought I saw it..."

At first I thought I saw it

A candy in my hand

But then it disappeared

Where did my candy land?

Is it in the bushes

In the park across the way

Did it roll beneath the fence

Or fall into the hay

Is it underneath that garbage can

Or in between these rocks

Did it dribble like a basketball

And slip into my socks

I simply cannot find it

All these places I have scanned

Oh there's my piece of candy!

It was in my other hand

April 8, 2008 -- Write a poem or short story about photographs.

I shredded all my memories

They're bits and pieces now

The photos of the happy times

I no longer allow

They're gathered in a trash bin

I haven't tossed them yet

But my anger and frustration

Are all that they will get

I haven't got a childhood

I made it disappear

No longer will I have to see

Those times of which I hear

I shredded all my memories

They've nowhere left to go

They're hiding in that trash bin

And no one has to know

May 13, 2008 -- Choose an object. Write a physical description of that object. Write a simile of the object. Then write what you'd like that object to do. (I chose the word fairy.)

Flower dress in pink sparkles. Ringlets in honey brown. A tender, tiny face and two hands gingerly holding a blue butterfly. You're like a drop of water, so soft and fragile, graceful and free. Fly away with me to a magical and carefree world, where possibilites are limitless and times stands still.

And so you can see how my writing reveals my thoughts, my feelings, my turmoil or silliness.