Discard

31 October 2020 Saturday Poetry Prompt: the be vulnerable prompt

Exhausted at the edges
half an inch of the outer just
not there
Frozen to a carcass
of indifferent weight
the gasps of the debt load
holding court over piles
of useless nerves
And you don’t get out of
here so easily
Another waiting room
again
the silent immobility of clocks
disaster on every horizon
The naked houses of the
succeeding
crowding in on the surfaces
of one more constraint
I shed the suicide calendars
but the discarding of worse
resisting the garbage bin
Still for a few seconds of recovery
then punished for
getting up
The shrinking of a life
the exposure of a dead hand

Prompt:

Yes, I know it’s Halloween and I ought to fling out something scary here. So, I will, but not in the masked/costume sort of way. In fact, let’s go to its opposite, let’s unmask, if you will. I’m going to ask you to be vulnerable. Most of us (all?), shy away from vulnerability. It’s easy to see why: being terribly exposed makes us feel like we’re in danger. too open. Most of you have probably noticed the overarching theme of pain/immobility/frustration in my work these last few weeks. A lot of that has to do with the weather, or season, exacerbating my damaged nerve condition. It’s alright. It’s not fatal, but it is a lot too handle. I hope you’ll forgive me for laying yet one more pain-filled piece, but here I am. I’m honest, and it does scare the living shit out of me that so many people get to read about the madness happening under my skin. For today’s prompt, be terrified, be vulnerable; it doesn’t have to be about some condition you’re currently undergoing. I don’t want you to divulge anything…

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