Hot, Sticky, and Sometimes Toxic

Hot, Sticky, and Sometimes Toxic

For a handful of blackberries,
a bucket of sweat. 

A dozen webs across my face
to hear the thrush’s song.

Muddy boots, grassy shins, gnats in my eyes
for a single centimeter of purple silk, 
chicory pressed
between finger and thumb. 

I tick check, chigger check, poison ivy check,
but mostly, I am checking—
Am I alive?
Am I part of this?

The spider dangling from my lashes
assures me
I am. 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The Prompt

I read the above poem at Saturday’s open mic and reading for Substack poets. I’m still feeling the expansion, inspiration, and energy that poured into me as I listened to so many brilliant and big-hearted poets read. There’s something magical about hearing a poet read their own work and about the snippets of commentary and backstory that they wrap around their poems. Plus faces! It turns out all these people here on Substack have actual faces—how lovely to have seen so many of them. If you missed out on this event, don’t worry, I’m sure LeeAnn Pickrell and I will host another one before too long.

If you’d like a prompt to play with today, then I invite you to consider some of the sacrifices that you willingly make in your daily life. What discomforts do you freely choose and possibly even embrace? I, for one, am very willing to sweat for blackberries. Most days, I’m willing to take a few spider webs to the face in exchange for time in the woods and moments bathing in bird song. (Although we’ve reached the time of year where both the webs and the spiders get much bigger, so we’ll see how much longer I’m willing to embrace that particular discomfort.)

There are other discomforts that make me decidedly grumpy—trades I make rarely and reluctantly. I find it much harder, for example, to face a shopping mall than a patch of poison ivy.

What types of friction do you welcome in your life? What kinds of friction do you resist or resent or avoid? What kinds of hurts give you that hurts-so-good feeling, and which ones make you want to head for the door? Are there discomforts you long for—the burning of lungs on a long run, the burning of sand against your feet, the feeling of stretching to your cognitive edge, the feeling of submerging in a shock of icy water? What’s the difference between the discomforts you choose and the ones you resist? Has this been static across your life, or have you noticed changes?

Notice which memories, impressions, thoughts, feelings, or images pop most for you as you contemplate these questions. Move in the direction of the sparks and heat. Write your poem from there. And if you’d like to share it, please do! School has just started back up for my kids, and so I’m hopeful my response time will be a little faster in the comments thread than it has been during the summer months. But even when I’m slow to get to them, your poems and comments bring me such a jolt of happiness. Thank you!

Speaking of very uncomfortable but very exciting things,

I started writing a novel in 2018. It took me several years of writing, with several long pauses woven in due to cognitive issues from long Covid. And then it took me several years of revising, with several long pauses woven in because of all the things life throws at you but also just because pauses are helpful. I’ll be releasing it within the next few weeks and will share more info with you then, but for now, here is a sneak preview of the cover, which I am mildly obsessed with. I can’t wait to share the actual book with you!