I wish I had a writing process.
If you would have asked me a
month ago, I would have told you
my process is
Write when I feel like it.
So why then, for the past 3 weeks,
have I felt like it, and then every
word feels like it has taken
a surprise vacation from my brain?

I hate writing.
Let me rephrase,
I hate saying I’m a writer,
then having nothing to show for it.
Where have all the words gone?

Even now, as I type this from my
thumbs while walking to a class
in Spain, I feel the weight of
unwritten words in the space
below my diaphragm.
I am in the most beautiful
city in the world and I
can’t get inspired for the life of me—
and here I am writing about writer's block.

How pretentious.

I hate being a writer,
It feels as if as soon as I gave
myself that title, my brain knew it had
to humble me so that I would stop saying
I am a writer,
And start saying
Oh, I just like to write sometimes.

Is it all not just for show?
Do I not just write to tell people that I do?

I’ve lost sight of the meaning
of why I write in the first place.
Let me use this rant
as a way to get my
head on straight and to
grab myself by the ankles
And start at square one.

I used to write about fun things,
like my best friend’s birthday party.
Just for the sole reason that
I had fun and felt loved
And I cared about them
So much that I
Couldn’t help but write a poem.

Do you know how that feels?

To feel so strongly that
The only outlet is to write.
I guess that is where
the idea of my writing process came from.
And the key to getting my words back.

I will chase that feeling,
the overwhelming poetness
feeling until all I can do
Is write, and write once more.

I went to an open mic night in a western town;
A blackboard sign read “Cowboy poetry, open to all.”
I was neither a cowboy or a poet, but figured all included me
so in I went.

40 fans complimented broken AC nicely,
and a woman who has seen 3 times the amount of sunrises as me
handed me a mixed drink
as a handlebar mustache-d man stepped up to the mic.

Some punk crept in the back door.
Buckled boots rose to their knees,
and half a can of spray held their hair in a way
birds would be scared to land there.

Suddenly my mixed drink felt like popcorn and
I could almost see a tumbleweed roll by,
as the Wild West duel tune played in my brain.

As the boots-wearing wrangler took the mic,
speaking about some horse, or something,
I watched as my sinister sister put down their phone to listen,
all 18 earrings jingling as they turned their head towards him.  

As the next poet took the stage I kept my eyes trained on
Ol’ Howdy’s hand, making sure the poem titled
”gender: my nonbinary manifesto” didn’t elicit
any gunslinging fast-ones.

But he just kicked back and listened as eyeliner
delivered a powerful and albeit, relatable poem about
the gifted kid to goth dropout pipeline.

The night ended and I was too nervous to
share my own writing and so I recycled my popcorn bucket
and had a foot out the door as I heard a deep southern voice speak—
maybe my entertainment wasn’t yet finished.

“I have never heard something quite like that.”
I unashamedly tuned into their conversation—
“you have a real gift for writing, young— ”
“Friend.”

”Thank you, I could really feel
how much your horse meant to you.
Secretariat thanks you for sharing”

I left the shop that day,
passed the since rained clean outdoor chalkboard
and wondered why I had expected a showdown.

Poetry brings us together,
cowboy hat and fishnet leggings,
and all who love to write.

Peering through lenses, I see myself
legs swung over cliffside mountain shelf.

She holds her hand and I allow a smile,
She who is me, has deserved love for a while.

Choking on rain and the smile filled moon,
They dance over dewdrops and hearts are cocooned.

This is their fantasy hand crafted world,
Books they have written and princess swords twirled.

Two poets in love, a trope unheard,
Run hips under fingers, darlings’ skin lines are blurred.

I love to watch my life through a secondhand source,
A real life fairytale, running its course.

How lucky am I to feel things
So deeply and fully.







That’s it.
                        That’s the poem.

When I was eleven years old
I took a weekend trip to heaven.
It wasn’t like you’d think;
it wasn’t white and fluffy,
there weren’t trumpets and harps of gold
that serenaded our footsteps.
No, it was actually my darkened
neighborhood cul de sac,
the echoes of the yelling of
“ghost in the graveyard”
bounced off the front windows of
the houses that encircled us.

I guess in that sense you could say
that for a fateful night heaven and hell
made up and buried the zero hour hatchet
to form a 3rd, darker and funner location,
one that kids could hide from each other
by laying in the grass, one where spirits
and scraped knees conjoined
to invent new life reincarnate.

I have never heard more worship-filled
sounds than the ringing of my doorbell past 10 PM,
and I have never seen an angel like the
10 year old boy with a bleach-blonde bowl cut
singing to me, “do you want to play night games?”

When my parents were kind that day
or at least asleep I would put on
my best shoes and run into my driveway,
and faced the star-filled colosseum with
6 other middle school boys;
the possibilities seemed limitless.
Those times I wasn’t a girl or a boy
but simply a phantom and a gladiator,
and I knew not of life or death
but only of the games that went on into the night.

We competed in trials and prayed
to not be found, if we were extra lucky
the soldier-bearing adults next door would
make us s’mores like the lords we were,
doting on us as if we were eating our last,
or possibly very first meal.

We always knew we would resurrect again,
and that with the morning came the sunburns
on our faces and the colosseum would
morph into concrete once more.
But until our midnight deathly escapade finally waned,
we rolled in the grass and
held hands and danced as
the heavenly ghosts we were.