Miss You: March 9-16, 2023
Think of someone you miss. Write something to or about them - a letter, a postcard, a poem, a short story - whatever you feel like.
Due March 16 by 7:00 p.m.
The Submissions:
by Journal Kurtz
by Captain Quillard
(This unedited, unpolished, stream-of-consciousness bit of writing is woefully inadequate for the person its written for, but it feels like the best I can do for now, so here it is.)
We were lied to, I guess –
force-fed a gross oversimplification disguised
as a well-meaning warning
against prejudice
and rush to judgment, when
the truth
is that sometimes you
can
judge a book by
its cover
If not the cover, the table
of contents, then – the summary
dust jacket blurb – the way the book
feels
in your hand, owning all its heft –
its familiar weightiness and texture, the comforting scent
of lignin and vanilla and memory mixed
with possibility,
giving off a tangible proof that what you’re
holding now
is real
and authentic – a story you’ll love; a subject matter that will fascinate you; a world
you’ll enjoy getting to know and never tire of returning to –
Immediately, you can just tell:
this one
is a good one.
I haven’t been able to feel much
since I heard –
no emotions of any kind,
really – stuck in that barren, dusty,
blank page liminal space between feeling
happy for you
and profoundly sad –
sad for all the obvious, horrific reasons, sure,
and also for those based
on the inevitable conjecture about levels of hurt and sadness I assume
you felt but didn’t deserve,
but mostly for
the most selfish reason of them all: that
I won’t get to enjoy more of
your story
The happiness
is harder to explain, and the thoughts and sentences I’ve been using
to do so
all start with nonsense – made-up words that are mostly just
sounds and syllables mixed
with silence – and all end with the phrase
“…on his own terms.”
It somehow feels both hollow and empty
and yet true and significant enough to be
a counterweight to the sadness
that leaves me in the middle,
feeling nothing
I was warned this day would
eventually come
by someone who knew you much better
than I did –
I say
“knew you much better,” but the truth is,
I knew all I needed to know about you.
There are people
in this world we see
every day, year after year, and still
never feel like we really
know them
And there are those
who have only to say
“hello”
for us to feel we
know them well –
their tables of contents outline their full
character,
the dust jacket blurb draws us in, and
the cover
gives us all we need to judge them –
We feel their full weight in our hands, and immediately
we can tell:
this one is a good one.
There is also that scent – the faint, welcoming smell of
a book that invites us to
open ourselves up to the story it has to tell,
accepting that we don’t know where
it will take us or how
it will end –
We know only that it will end –
After all, the scent of a book
comes from the chemical breakdown of compounds
within the paper, so what we’re really smelling is
the book slowly dying –
its story ending,
and yet
there is a comfort to that scent – it wraps us in its warm familiarity and
reminds us how rare the truly good stories are.
And how lucky we were
to find one
we didn’t want to end.
by Anonymous Frau Redux
Dementia
Soul sucking diagnosis
Eventually acknowledging
Only a fraction of them lingers
They’re present in the past
Moments of clarity less frequent
Their defective brain of tangled thoughts
Unpredictable like playing pinball
Bells ring
Lights flash
Score reels jam
No win situation
Lost in an alternate reality
Knowing you’re not knowing what you once knew
Dependent on others
Trapped there in a failing body
Grasping for the words
Elusive motherf^<%ers
“If I could turn back time…you’d stay…”
Dementia sucks
Borrowed a phrase from Cher in this.
-Anon Frau R
Next Week’s Assignment:
Zentangle. What is it? I could tell you, but I’d rather make you watch this little video by the weirdos who started it: https://zentangle.com/pages/get-started
You’ll find step by step instructions there, too. But basically, you draw a square and divide it into sections, and then fill those sections by drawing repetitive patterns and zenning out while doing it. It’s supposed to relax you and be meditative, but mostly it just seems like an easy way to make art this week. Let’s give it a try.