His Hand On Her Throat

“The trick is to enjoy life. Don’t wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead.”

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

(Chen Chen, Chapter VIII / Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray / Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger / Holly Black, The Cruel Prince / Anne Carson, Glass, Irony and God / Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)

Fresh start bitter end

It sinks in your eyes’ blue (life, lust, love) like a skimming stone having lost all momentum,

and drowns there, where I have again and again. But it is only the end

for a moment. Stillness may hold your moon- spirit in its orbit but gravity wanes and

your trajectory is as yet unknown. Where will you go

then?: When the beginning takes you? Where will you fly (and if not fly, walk; and if not walk, swim)?

Do we win the battle when there are no fears left to face? Or is it won through exploration and through acceptance: that

there will be one thing and then another and then another

like the haunting of an ancient burial ground from now until forever.

“A Simple Thesis Poem”

Why did the chicken cross the road?

The age old question

To make a better life for zirself?

Did zir walk or perhaps run away from the flames that were on the other side?

We never talk about what zir found on the other side, thoroughly

Did this chicken find a message in a bottle telling them it will all be okay?

Or a worn down album from Sting and The Police?

Zir may stop to pick up the classic vinyl if zir found it laying on the busted sidewalk to listen to the poetry in their lyrics

The chicken makes it across the road

To pick up the record

To realize there is no record player to properly enjoy their poetry

Finding an old Gatorade bottle

The flavor Fierce Grape

Maybe purchased at Trader Joes

The Mecca of grocery stores

Thoughts of childhood soccer games

Slightly dramatic

And traumatic running through their brain waves

Zirs thirst no longer quenched

Remembering to be kind to the earth that continues to hold zirself up day and night

Throwing it away in the waste basket adjacent to where they found that fiercely delicious poetry created by the Police

That does not sting

Zir notices a couple holding hands

Within one block their hand lock changes several times

Are they trying to find comfort in how they show affection?

Can they not comfortably hold hands because their love has become less delicious?

Did their love get too close to the sun like Icarus’s wings?

Will their love melt back into each other or into other’s hearts?

We will never know the answers to all these questions

We will never know why the chicken truly crossed the road

What we do know is this

Zir chicken struts across the road to pen poetry for zirself

Zir chooses to share their poetry with everyone else

In time

On zir terms

Not to impress

Or be cohesive

Simply to get through another day

Deciphering messages found in other’s poetry and empty Gatorade bottles…(Panku)

© Elizabeth Sophia Strauss

Summerland Homecoming by Stijn Windig

“because inside each word some memory stalks another memory and without hearing it you know it is there, the way our dreams continue on without us, the way one star spills its light against another star beyond what we will ever see, where time echoes back and forth in their light”

— Richard jackson, from “A Train, The Scottsboro Boys,” B O D Y (Winter 2021)

You can't blame the monster for doing what's natural to them.

Angels are so far above the evils of men.

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

— Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world because you realize there was so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”

— Zayn Malik

Screw it.

Reblog this post before October 31st and I’ll say what monster/cryptid/mythical creature you remind me of just from scrolling through your blog a bit. Make sure you have asks open.