#prosepoetry poems on Hello Poetry

mothwasher Feb 2021

it was a kiss with coyote’s embouchure, with the river’s casket, with gelified venom, with the apron’s appetite, with compact distortion around portable lip cuffs, with trite lies liquified, with mud clumps in mercury clasps, with spit woven theses, with unwound ovoid wellsprings, with sun-hidden shadows, with the frayed nighttime squish, with closeted hand dice tossed, with chance in the fistfuls, with detuned static and bellyaching bramble, with losing yourself, with entropic dissociation, with fleeting tokens, with sayonara stamps, with honey pumping nozzles, with inside out stratus veins, with the pain of history tucked in the trail fringe, in the pebbles kicked outward, with fried abandon, with seatless balconies, with the touch of an insect unexpected while straddling a brick wall with electric grout, with eyelashes trimed by the wind, with patterns passed, with breathless shapes and shaping dimensions, without the taste of lavender or the mosquito’s lonely thirst, with time passing, with time passing, with time passing, without passing time, with the sky dumping elected dead bodies, with spoonfuls of miracles, with starvation kicking, with moon swells forgetting the fomite sea, with weather inside, with dry mouth drawer memories, with omens and herrings with teeth and tongue.

#coyote #kiss #absurd #sincere #surreal #prose #prosepoetry

Blackenedfigs Dec 2020

For Aubrey

Take me back to a different hotel every night and living out of a suitcase. Getting comfortable in our naked bodies around each other; comparing breast size and stretch marks—examining ourselves like the men who’ve carelessly fondled us before for our likes and dislikes. Sharing a bottle of lukewarm tequila in the world’s smallest bathtub and then I sing you to sleep. Highway cars buzzing past and there’s only one road to get lost on, but we manage it every single time. Your car becomes a dressing room at gas stations where people stare with disapproving glares and worry for the safety of their wallets; because we don’t belong here but we laugh—still drunk from the early morning hours and just trying to find the next check-in spot for the night. There never is a real destination but home always seems too close and we both hate that part. It doesn’t feel right when it ends or when I have to crawl back into my own bed without a time frame to be out by in the morning—before the housekeeping maid comes banging on our door,
yet again.

#prose #prosepoetry #love #friendship #drunk #travel #roadtrip #highways #****** #friends

adalicia Nov 2020

❝ love and coffee ❞

coffee may taste bitter and sweet. sometimes it's a combination of both, bittersweet. just like love, there are days that we would find it sweet, filled with joy and times we could feel these butterflies in our stomach. sometimes it's bitter, feeling pain, getting hurt, and tired eyes because of crying.

but often times with our coffee, we tend to get our tongues burned by its heat. sometimes we have tasted the unpleasant flavor of it. but have you thought of it? it takes time in getting the coffee's perfect taste, the perfect mixture and blend. just like love again, we pass through bitter pasts and heartaches. we experience different situations and hurdles when it comes to love. these matters that nurtures and guides us until we could finally meet our perfect one. the perfect mix. that blend that we would always come to love.

#coffee #poetry #love #prosepoem #prosepoetry #poem #prose

Mykarocknrollin Aug 2020

***

All of it
All at once
All i meant
All at the same time
All i ask for
All is a bit more
All the while
All the miles
All or Fall

xo

#love #prosepoetry #freeverse #pain #hurt #missyou

fray narte Aug 2020

Addressed to September

August took it all away — the long peaceful drives before the daylight, the fresh sheets and coffee kisses and the scent of calm after the storm, the eyes — your eyes, deep brown in contrast of the afterglow.

August took it all away, so easily — all slender fingers and somber face — the comfort of the hearth, and the promises, and the sunlit, warm days of summer; how happy we were. Darling, how happy we were. Now the walls are oppressively dull behind vibrant photographs, and the room is cold, and the silence is loud. How could I have known that I was walking around the pitfalls elaborately built on your fragile skin? In all this obscurity, I only know that I loved you so. How could I have known all the impossibly cruel ways that you would break my heart, when all you did was loved me so?

And you loved me, right? You loved me, for some time, before all the wrong there is — before all the pitfalls gave in, spoiling midnights and tainting mornings, taking down everything that I ever called home. You loved me, darling; at least that you did. You loved me.

At least that you said.

Now August has taken it all away, and all I know is that heartbreaks are worse in the early hours of a cold morning.

I hope September is warmer. Brighter. Gentler.

I hope September is kinder to us.

#heartache #heartbreak #pain #prose #prosepoetry #poets #writers #creativewriting #words #musings

fray narte Jul 2020

2013

i always dreamed about this —
meeting you again
in our favorite bookstore
and buying our usual authors
and getting paper cuts from ****** novels
just like the old times,
before the words all
fell out of the books.

i always dreamed about this —
neck kisses and i love yous
in a yard we'd call our own,
while the playlists we made
echo from earphones left lying in the grass.

i always dreamed about this —
listening to you recite poems
under the sky and the meteor showers;
then again darling, every prose you say
is my spoken poetry —
is my love sonnet written
for matilde urrutia.

i always dreamed about this —
getting lost once more
in the space between your freckles
and in the outline of your lips
and in the scent of your cologne
mixed with early morning petrichor.

i always dreamed about this —
about this very moment of seeing you again,
in mundane places
and maybe years later,
dreams can come true
somewhere in grocery aisles
and casual talks;
except in my dreams:

you're not wearing a wedding band.
you're not lost in the way that he smiled.

in my dreams,
i'll be the one opening the doors
and carrying the grocery bags,
and you'll not walk away
and leave so soon
while smiling back at him, darling
and while holding his hand.

in my dreams,
i'll still be the one saying i love you.
i love you.
i love you.

and you will still
say it back.

#heartbreak #heartache #prosepoetry #prose #poems #poetry #musings #spilledink

monique ezeh Jun 2020

black coffee

my mother drinks black coffee every day.
i’ve always thought it was strange— why not add a splash of cream to make it a bit easier on the palate? maybe a dash of sugar, too— some sweetness to ease its way down.

my mother's skin is the color of caramel, of coffee diluted with cream and sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon. despite this, she gave birth to three children the color of dark chocolate, of the black coffee she so adores.

unlike black coffee, we are not bitter, though the world expects that of us. we are not ugly, either, though they likely expect that, too. we are, perhaps, unpalatable, in the same way that black coffee is unpalatable to those lacking the right palate.

i always wondered why my mother insisted on tasting the bitterness, relishing in the onyx liquid sliding down her throat.
i always wondered why my skin didn’t resemble hers, smooth and unblemished and light and beautiful.
i always wondered why the dark-skinned girls in the magazines always had to have tiny noses and skin as blemishless as fine china.

i wonder, now, why i am so dependent on the splash of cream and dash of cinnamon in my coffee.
i wonder why i’m so wary of the bitterness, of the darkness.

i took my coffee black today. i savored it sliding down my throat, smooth as velvet and not nearly as bitter as i’d thought.

#coffee #prose #prosepoetry #mother #blackness #bitterness #blm

monique ezeh May 2020

nineteen

age 7:
i remember being 6 and desperate to be 7— my sister had a book to gift me for the occasion, and i was positively vibrating with the anticipation of it becoming mine. 7’s always been my lucky number. the date of my birth, the days in the week, the start of my phone number. and so, 7 came and went, and suddenly i was 8.

age 8:
i moved to georgia. it didn’t hurt nearly as much as i’d expected, as much as i’d hoped. I’d wanted to feel pain in the real way, to wail and sob like a DCOM protagonist, to shut myself in my room until my mother stood the doorway to talk me down. pain makes feelings matter; who am i, if i’ve never suffered? but instead, i was fine. i said goodbye to my friends, packed my bags, and left. i haven’t spoken to any of them since.

age 10:
i finally hit the double digits. i was in fourth grade. coincidentally, it was also the first time in my life that a crush had liked me back. i felt like a real woman. i remember straightening my hair and wearing my favorite pink outfit to school, a matching shirt and skirt, box of cupcakes for the class clutched in hand. they sang happy birthday and i somehow forgot what sadness was.

age 11:
the first time i cried on a birthday.

ages 13-15:
more tears.

age 16:
sweet sixteen! this was it! i planned a party, heart thumping in my chest wondering if anyone would come. i didn’t cry on my birthday, but i cried the morning of the party. i wonder if that still counts. when the blurred vision of my tears cleared, i saw the puzzle pieces of my life falling into place. i remember thinking: “i’m finally who i’m meant to be.” (spoiler: i was wrong)

age 18:
an adult. i cried (again), but who doesn’t? i celebrated with my family, counting down the days between then and graduation. 18. one of my favorite one direction songs; it dawned on me that i only had a year left to fall in love so i could play it at my wedding. 18. it dawned on me that my youth was slipping away. in a year, i’d be celebrating my birthday in a city miles and miles away, distanced from my family for the first time in my life. (spoiler: i was wrong about that, too) 18. it feels so scary, getting old.

age 19:
today. i haven’t cried yet. i wonder if i will. i wonder a lot, these days. this day is not how i imagined it; this year is not either. i think i am okay with that, though. expectations, in my life, have often led to disappointment. 19 19 19. i missed my window with the 1D song, but i think i’m okay with that, too. 19 19 19. i repeat the word until it loses all meaning. 19 19 19. i begin to wonder if it ever had any. 19 19 19. life is an incomprehensible amalgamation of numbers words moments symbols ideas. 19 19 19. none of them mean anything. 19 19 19. or perhaps all of them mean everything? 19 19 19. today, i am 19. it means nothing. it means everything.
19 19 19.
i close my eyes and make a wish.

happy birthday to me.

#birthday #aging #covid #quarantine #growth #prosepoetry #prose #list #tears #crying

monique ezeh May 2020

19 in quarantine

The drip drip drip of the Nespresso machine keeps me company.
I watch the brown pool rise and rise, filling my cup.
I take a sip, flinch unconsciously. It is bitter and scalding.
The cool foam coats my top lip.
No one is awake. It is 4am. I shouldn’t be awake.
Still, I am.
I will be nineteen in nineteen days.

This is not how I imagined my nineteenth; though my birthdays never really go the way I expect.
This is not how I imagined this month, this year.
There are worse things than being homebound; there are also better things.
I am trying to reconcile the existence of the two.

I am lucky enough to be (almost) nineteen.
To be safe
To be healthy
To have a home
To have a stable family income

I am unlucky enough to be (almost) nineteen.
To be mentally ill
To be isolated
To feel useless
To have a family spread thin

The two can coexist. I am lucky (and unlucky) enough to see this.

In nineteen days, I will be nineteen. Few people will know unless I tell them. There are bigger things to consider in the world. There are smaller ones too. I lie somewhere amid it all. I am just a girl— a faceless, healthy girl— amid a world of strife. The sun will rise, I will turn nineteen, and it will set; I doubt I will feel any different. The world will keep turning, with or without me. I am lucky (and unlucky) enough to recognize this.
Quarantine has provided me a bit too much time for introspection, I think.

My coffee is finished. The brown drops on the cup’s bottom resemble a smile. I am lucky enough to notice this.

been thinking a lot about the nature of existing in such an uncertain time. the world keeps spinning, even when it feels like it shouldn't. I'm not quite sure yet how to feel about the constance of mundanity; I don't know if there's a particular way I should feel.

#quarantine #birthday #covid19 #covid #aging #prose #prosepoetry #duality #coexistence #mundane