Poetry Writing Prompts

I was the clay

You sat to mold

And in your embrace,

I was all you wanted

And more

And as you threw me

On the wheel

My edges became curves

And I was becoming pottery

A prized piece of art

Painted and fired

Set to stone in the kiln

Only to be admired

I was set on the very highest shelf

Put as an art gallery attraction

And when I was draped round your arm

That’s all I was, a piece

Of the latest fashi...

The day I turned 18, sweet sunny, summer day!

Was I by forest’s edge, kept saying I’m okay,

That day, from all of days, wasn’t supposed to cry!

That day, unlike the others, wasn’t about goodbyes!

I wanted, one more time, first time in adulthood,

To hug a special oak tree, my friend so strong and good,

To tell him that I’m sorry I didn’t come to see

The forest, I was busy to grow and simply be…

...

i asked for advice

up and down the bar

and every response

had something to do

with my heart

to listen with it

to view with it

to feel with it

to decide with it

and i thought about the thing

the horrible shape

the pumping

the blood inside

like a highway

keeping us going

doing a lot

but still expected

to do more

the hideous heart

so grotesque it had to be

put inside, away from sight

and i thou...

I’ve lost

everything.

each part of myself

auctioned off to

the one on the

highest pedestal.

and they still

ask for

more? somehow

my entire soul

doesn’t satiate their

hunger.

they ask me for help

because they

“don’t have the time.”

instead,

I make the time

for them....

The voices calm

My back is sharp

I have been impaled

On this street corner

I cannot sit

I cannot slump

The pole has been jabbed into my back

Propping me up

Like a doll in a case

People pass

But do not look

They do not see what has happened

My gasping is not loud enough

I cannot catch my breath

People pass

But do not look

Now I know

They do see what has happened

They do not care

My final breaths...

Somewhere in Florida,

a strawberry finds itself growing

on a tree, beside an apple

long past ripe.

Plump and red. Swollen like a cheek.

It knows it has no business being there,

but it admits—

it is nice, for once, to be tall.

Nice, for once, to feel the sky

closer than the ground.

And somewhere in California,

Half Moon Bay,

a girl stands on a rooftop

and thinks the same.

Sick of the ocean,

of al...

Two languages colliding:

your body’s rough syntax, my heart’s messy grammar.

Both saying: stay. Stay for what comes next.

Stay for the way light bends through my blinds at dusk,

for the heat caught between our skin and my sheets,

for the dull ache that lingers a bit longer than it should,

the kind you stop noticing until it starts to hurt again.

We write stories for each other in fingerprints an...

I check the calendar as I always do

Checking that it is a Tuesday,

Not that I didn’t know that already

But the days run together.

I wend my way up the stairs

Avoiding the one with the creak

That I really should get fixed,

But there is a strange comfort

In such a well-known sound.

In the bedroom I pull out jeans

And the underwear you laughed at,

The cotton granny pants, the bra

With the one small ...

White angels playing in your hair.

I crushed your big heart made of snow.

Hopes blooming like an early spring.

Sweet taste of raindrops on your lips.

We lay beneath a sky of cherry trees.

A teddy bear, white roses and your playful smile.

You paint the night sky on my sunkissed skin.

Dance me to the edge of heaven, my love.

Of falling leaves you made a promise ring.

You see that little spa...

the thrill of thin ice

the familiarity of worry

the comfort of self pity

the yearning for what is always sliding away

the relief of not yet cracking through...

Pop

Pin prick to cosmos

Timeless to tempo

Dilation to coalescence

Dust to cloud to planet

Crash

Collisions, collapses, chaos

Time

Time

Time

Pool

Carbon to compound

Chemistry to biology

Bacteria to backbone to breath

Bees, Crocodiles, dinosaurs

Crash

Time

Time

Time

Growth

Divergence by populations

Catching prey

Dodging trouble

Camouflage, tooth, poison, claw

Tools, tribes, tech

People

Time

Time

T...

If you are to read this poem, know this.

The words I’m about to write are intended to slay your bliss.

I hope you’re sitting uncomfortably.

I hope you can’t reach that itch.

Your skin is beginning to prickle, whilst you’re reading this.

Your scalp is screaming “dig your nails into me?”

Picture images of lice, mice, and fleas.

In the corner of your eye, just out of reach, in the contours of ...