minor bouts of mania fun guy get things done depressed sit in dark room give me whatever I want clean the house contact reach out talkative grocery store line love me they all love me bulldoze you all
Poetry
Poetry – please let me go
Please let me go please let me go let me flicker out of existence for a while Let this heart still let this mind be silenced let these feelings fade until I can bear to face them again.
Poetry – Is there meaning here?
Is there meaning here? I stare into space oblivious to all but my own numbness, hoping for a call - a beckoning voice to draw me back from the edge of my self-imposed exile. Drop the feathery gauze from these old, battered lenses and push me if necessary out of the warm niche carved long ago in this mount of regret.
Poetry – Why do i
Why do I often find you staring at the moon with such desperate attraction, only to turn your back towards its soft rays of beckoning light; allowing your frigid feet to stumble forward and embrace the subtle call of the darkness pervading all the shadows before you?
Prose Poetry – Houseplants
I murder houseplants. Not intentionally, mind you, but the result is still the same…dead flowers, dead leaves, dead roots. I’m pretty sure I’ve even killed the dirt (if that’s possible).
Regardless, for some unintelligible reason, people keep gifting the little pots of green hope to me. I swear, sometimes I’m convinced I can hear their little floral voices begging for mercy and a swift end as their tiny veins dry out and the edges of their delicate fronds curl up, eventually crinkling, splintering, and fluttering down to settle on the ceramic base below.
Over time, I’ve learned to look away from this process, as it tends to bring me down. I only wish I could grant my victims a similar solace.
Prose poetry – Jigsaw Puzzle
Last night, I dreamt I was a jigsaw puzzle – a background of deep, midnight blue, sprinkled with golden stars. Someone came along and broke me apart, my round edges curling up as they separated.
Thin fingers pierced the middle of each cardboard edge with green metal hooks, the kind used to hang Christmas bulbs. Each piece of me was then threaded and hung from the ceiling.
Soon, I found myself twisting and turning upon the whims of the air current – 500 paper flares, now a floating constellation.
Poetry – A Withering Smile
An icy glance a withering smile - and again you've shaken my faith for a while.
Poetry – Reverse Engineering
Most prefer the beginning
before the end,
but I offer
an alternative,
let's allow the end
to predict the beginning.
- marandarussell.com
*thanks to Jonathan Caswell for the title inspiration!
Stream of Consciousness Writing – Where Did I Go?
Where did I go? I swear I was just right here, feeling fine, but now I look around and I’m nowhere to be seen.
I guess I’ll have to break out the “lost self” posters and nail them to every tree on our block.
If I’m found, I’m afraid there is no reward, but my hungry cats will be most grateful.
Maranda Russell 