For beausia’s poem prompts for National Poetry Writing Month 2024. Prompt 9: it’s giving. Written 8.14.24. To be crossposted to IG.

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it’s giving
sunshine in winter
a cool gulp of water in the heat
body crème after a hot shower

it’s giving
finding a spoon to eat tiramisu
when you thought you were all outta spoons
and you were ready to dig in with a dirty spoon,
or a butter knife if you needed to, tongue ready
for the rasp of the edge

it’s giving
the first swatch of lipstick, and knowing you’re on fire;
or an unexpected postcard from your best friend
just wanted you to know, I’m thinking of you! 😘;
so you write back and seal your letter with a lipstick kiss
I know you know the value of this

it’s giving
I’m so in love with this life
which means, I am also in love with myself
which means, I also love what it is that has brought me here

it’s giving
three of swords, ten of swords, ace of vials
you will understand, one day, what these old heartaches gave you

For Beau Sia’s poem prompts from #NaPoWriMo2024, posted 4.1.24. #poemswithbeau Prompt 2: meet me. Still poking at the format; completed for V’s birthday. Cross posted to IG.

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meet at my best,
no
meet me at my worst.
wait,
that sounds like an insult, but
it is how I learned to love
from my family.
a terrible example,
but it’s true
I think,
that we are searching for
a loosening, a relaxation of clenched fist
when we love;
and in my family
what came down was
hidden,
empty spaces left
and filled in with
and and .
and in private, the house shook with anger
the way a haunted house moans with the wind.
How do I outrun that kind of legacy?
How do I unclench my teeth and not
catch you in the splash of blood?
How about this,
say,
meet me outside, after I’ve snuck past my
childhood monsters, and crept out the front door
and slapped my feet against the concrete.
Or, meet me outside, after I’ve snuck back home,
and made this house a palace of
water and light and rainbows,
an exhale and not a held breath never let go.
I’m headed somewhere, can you meet me out front?
I wanna show you the landscape of my childhood,
a vista of hills and tiny houses, where I inhale
at last meet me, not my best self or worst self, but
my most tender self, most easily loved self, ready
to take her breath at last.

For beausia’s poem prompts for National Poetry Writing Month 2024. Prompt 1: still love. Written 4.3.24, completed June 2025 for V’s birthday. Crossposted to IG.

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still my love, the birds are singing
at night when I go to bed, sometimes
even in the afternoon sun, when I
blearily open my eyes, light sneaking past the
blackout curtains, the way plants will find
the light anyway they can, the way you and I
are reaching for joy no matter the way the
world breaks.

still, my love, we log online and read the headlines,
the New York Times long unreliable, publishing
things even the Onion couldn’t make funny;
a Canva collage informs me on Facebook that my
mentor-peer-homie-comrade has passed away.
I call out sick, my body insisting we cannot go
on and work and labor and grind beneath the
cis hetero capitalist white supremacist death machine,
not today, at least.

still, my love, I find ways to keep going
on Tuesdays I wake up to listen to Worlds Beyond Number,
on Wednesday Vibe Check, at the end of the work day, I have
Fantasy High Junior Year. I am clinging as best I can,
to what reminds me of joy in year 5 of our collective pandemic.
you know I am a sun lover, ink drinker, but these years I turn
the page to other things like: more podcasts, more TV, more music;
more ways to be in my body
shake it off, bake it off, downward dog my way into this stillness where
I can try my best to be a clear channel for what is next to come.

my love, if I can settle into my flesh, let my spirit
inhabit this body like a mecha, I think I can do magic –
just another word for dreaming, for storytelling,
and conjuring beauty in difference. even now,
especially now, I might not be a child anymore
but I believe there is something we can
still
do
now.

Originally written 8.15.24 and tinkered with this month. For Beau Sia’s poem prompts (originally posted 4.1.24) for #NaPoWriMo2024. #poemswithbeau. Prompt 10. lifetime work. Vibes from the imagery of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, particularly the poem “Letting Go.” Crossposted to IG.

Last edited: 6.9.25

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it is a lifetime’s work to slip out of one skin
and into another, like stepping out on december
31st and coming home to the fresh sheet of
january 1st.

it takes skill to know when irritation and frustration
means your skin has grown too tight, and it is not,
in fact, the fact your coworker couldn’t remember your name,
and most certainly did not read the below email that
unlike his FYP, had all the answers he needed. /
letting go is a skill. if only if it were as easy as
ripping off a shirt and growing muscles beneath the full moon.
no, you must chafe against the restrictions until you
have scraped away the old you, burnt up bits of meat
that cling to moon-white bone.

the feeling of your new skin against the world
makes everything feel new again. ecstatic pain, ecstatic joy.
here is a knife’s edge to split yourself upon, and reach
into your guts and pull forth a new you,
rabbit outta the hat, pull the ocean from your cunt with a fist

settle into a new shape, explore the world again, this time as
a scaled thing – last time with your vestigial gills, next time maybe
with feathers growing from your knuckles
that will remind you that each time you clench your body
and make the punching kind of fist, claws upon your palm,
you could let go. release,
open your flesh to what comes next:
perhaps your fangs will drop, perhaps your feet
will become a deer’s
darting through a forest path,
and perhaps you will open your hand

and fly
to catch the wind