Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST November 15th 2024

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Belief in Magic” by Dean Young, posted below.

Our prompt was:Write about words suspended in the air.

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

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Please join us for our next session Friday November 22nd at 12pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

Belief in Magic by Dean Young

How could I not?
Have seen a man walk up to a piano
and both survive.
Have turned the exterminator away.
Seen lipstick on a wine glass not shatter the wine.
Seen rainbows in puddles.
Been recognized by stray dogs.
I believe reality is approximately 65% if.
All rivers are full of sky.
Waterfalls are in the mind.
We all come from slime.
Even alpacas.
I believe we’re surrounded by crystals.
Not just Alexander Vvedensky.
Maybe dysentery, maybe a guard’s bullet did him in.
Nonetheless.
Nevertheless
I believe there are many kingdoms left.
The Declaration of Independence was written with a feather.
A single gem has throbbed in my chest my whole life
even though
even though this is my second heart.
Because the first failed,
such was its opportunity.
Was cut out in pieces and incinerated.
I asked.
And so was denied the chance to regard my own heart
in a jar.
Strange tangled imp.
Wee sleekit in red brambles.
You know what it feels like to hold
a burning piece of paper, maybe even
trying to read it as the flames get close
to your fingers until all you’re holding
is a curl of ash by its white ear tip
yet the words still hover in the air?
That’s how I feel now.

Source: Poetry (July/August 2014)


4 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST November 15th 2024

  1. Jennifer Lee's avatar Jennifer Lee

    In the corridor where the sun is more blinding than light you tell me it hurts 

    the way a lollipop will cut up your tongue like it wasn’t meant to soothe it. 

    When they ask you why you did it (because you didn’t want to remember anymore) you run those cuts along your teeth until the red dresses up your molars like lipstick from another dimension. 

    Do you feel the universe seeping into all those slits of crimson? Do you wait for the moon-beckoned truth to slash up the undersides of your eyelids? 

    Linger. Mourn the sweetness. Expect the stick. 

    I remember friendship bracelets before patient barcodes.

    I remember sleepovers. Floating on whispers till the numbers on the clock grew smaller.

    Before the chair at the hospital or the funeral there was the seat at the cafeteria where we tore open old memories like they still had something left to offer. 

    Like

  2. michele348's avatar michele348

    About words suspended in the air~~~

    The air hangs heavy before me,
    a tapestry of emotions… disbelief, hate, anger, and fear.
    Words linger in time,
    unwavering in their determination
    to be recognized,
    to weave themselves into the fabric
    of my heart.

    How do I decide which one to acknowledge,
    and declare as valid
    when every emotion has coursed
    through me?

    Which of these words
    have been imposed upon me
    by the influence of others,
    by their egos,
    stirred up by events designed to
    confuse my sanity
    and lead me into darkness?

    I must step out
    into the fresh air,
    where the wind stirs,
    and where the light
    shines brightly on me.

    Perhaps here I can separate
    the truths from the untruths,
    the reality from the fantasy.

    Maybe then this heavy curtain of emotions
    will dissolve,
    and my mind and heart will find peace.

    Like

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