I knew from the day I met you, that every inch of you would be carved into my soul. Writing Prompt: Carve
Author: zaji
turn to stone
If I don’t begin posting to my blog daily, I will turn to stone. It’s true. I read it in a book.
marcus garvey’s house atop a hill
I had not been home to Jamaica in over a decade. In August 2015 I took a trip, and while there, visited Marcus Garvey’s house, which still stands atop a small hill, with the same ginep tree that was there when he was a child. I ate from that ginep tree and imagined Garvey climbing…
the living
There are days like today when the living ain’t easy. I sit in the back of the store—breakroom slash stockroom—waiting for things I cannot name. Boxes stacked to the ceiling containing gadgets to keep us entertained. Fluorescent lights hum. The clock ticks away each second of my life for minimum wage. I won’t be dishonest,…
in elysium
Your whispers reach me across time. They find me standing on the edge of awakening. My dreams leave, then your dreams ask to enter the space of love that eases our pain. We go together, warriors of love, into the fields of Elysium. And there we plant ourselves in eternity, seeded and ready to incarnate…
feeling jolly, maybe
It snowed last night. This morning the sky was clear and the snow bright. While I do feel a sense of jolly when I look at the blanket of white, I continue to wish that snow weren’t so cold. I know, to achieve such a feat would require a change in the structure of everything…
i built a story
I built a story that was tall and wide, stretching across miles of land like the Great Wall of China. I did not use brick or stone or plastic or metal or wood. I used the purple haze of stardust, sprinkled on sea foam paper that chewed my words into wide-eyed children, nutrient rich and…
hate speech vs my mighty voice
Mighty Voices Rise I don’t give two damns about “hate speech” against me, a brown woman. Not two. I have a mighty voice and know how to defend myself against words meant to cut my soul. What I care a lot about is whether someone attempts to do me physical harm, cut my skin. That…
unfurl
i am unfurled unwrapped by life’s hardships, joys and mysteries. without understanding why, i have lived without a name. Unfurl
mortal words
i’ve decided that i don’t want to write, not with my hands anyway. i want to think words onto paper and screens and leaves and stones and skies. i want words to fall onto the sand and clay soil, carved into ice and cave walls. i want words to appear on my skin, spinning stories…
i am the stream…
i am the stream… of consciousness. it is 2:38pm, monday, the In The Beginning day of the week august 14. twenty seventeen, whatever that means it is the day when i want to forget the days and seconds and step into infinity, the un-time when will my day come. this is not a question. not…
save words
i will save words for you. bottled and pickled words for you. then feed you synonyms of me, so you will always remember my taste. i will flavor your life until all your tongue remembers is what it is was like to come…to come…to come …into my dreams. and stay a while. a long while….
satchel of poems
I had a satchel filled with poems that I tossed into the sea. I wrote them on tiny circles and squares and rectangles woven with jute, some in permanent gold ink, others lovingly stitched on over the course of many sunrises and sunsets. It may seem foolish, but I believe the fish will read them…
ink spill
I spilled ink across the blank pages of my notebook. It was then that I decided to write stories with my fingers.
the words spill
The words spill from my pen, blood red, no longer wanting to be ink, but to be life. The words follow me into my dreams. There, I am sky bound. Landing is a matter of chance.
freedom
We all seek freedom in one way or another. But in the end, we live in an age where none of us know what true freedom feels like. We’ve never lived it beyond our mind and flowering imagination. Although I don’t know what freedom feels like as a tangible experience, I know the swing of…
i hide
i hide inside myself, in the dark corners of memory, in the light of a thousand what-could-have-beens.
existence remembered
The words leave, drifting atop my misconceptions. I am looking backwards. Why did we come here? Was it only to see if being human was a strange fad, something new for our soul to do? Or was it something real and lasting and developed from a wanting, from a need to exist inside a space…
parallel universe
In the space of memory resides the fence we stand atop, teetering on the edge between hard ground and water. In that space we remember the moments that embrace us before we have a chance to embrace them. They catch us unaware and ask us the hard questions we’re not ready to answer. Why do…
your lies
Your lies won’t save you from death. You will die anyway. Death is the great truth teller. When it comes, all you will know in that moment is the truth; which is, you will soon be gone, into the wind, into oblivion, into another existence, into… Whatever you go into, it will be the ultimate…