Writing Life
We put up with a certain level of
Gross from our lovers and
Farting on each other in bed and
Giggling about it and
Don’t you dare Dutch oven me
Again… Chester!
Can be as intimate as
The world’s sweetest
Sulfur kiss.
-M. Ashley
Find me on TikTok at: MNAshleyPoetry
Maybe I should be out
Loud about it. Maybe I
Should talk. I know it
Sure would have helped me
A lot if the woman they
Kept in a box under the
Bed for seven years had
Been a little more chatty.
“These things do happen. They
Do.” We would commiserate
With each other through the
Knothole in her box and the
Keyhole in the door I was
Locked and chained behind
Also for seven years.
Lucky lucky.
“Colleen,” I would whisper so
The bad men wouldn’t hear.
Colleen whose name means
Girl
“Colleen,” I would whisper
“I get you Sister.
I do.”
-M. Ashley
If you are a survivor of sex trafficking, I cannot recommend the organization Journey Out enough. They have helped me tremendously and I am grateful every day that I found them.
Deja vu all
Over the place
I’m waiting
For the second
Shoe to drop
Again.
-M.
Strawberries in a blizzard
God brings you in
A silver bowl
Red flesh
Red flesh
Red flesh all
The red flesh still
warm from the absent sun.
-M.
With milk
only milk
only whole
milk a
middle-aged
no-frills
dairy maid
grumbling into
her cup
“Cows these
days get
up too
damn early.”
-M.
I might miss caring when I’m dead
doing back flips with my horny god
in the ether I may stop
my glory gathering around me like
fireflies circling the mother fire
for a blink I might miss
wondering how my loved
ones are getting along without me
I might miss the cozy straightjacket limitations
of the short view on death
I might miss the exhilaration of
dread not knowing what
freedom lies in the Great Beyond
But then
I’ll get over it.
-M.
This mirror is your wishing
Mirror—everything brave
You say to your face comes true.
-M.
This January hibiscus bud
Kissed by absence of color
My albino fingers exploring the
Hard petals the shy face of
A goddess willing to be
Searched blindly by the blind
Whose blindness comes from
Looking too much into the light.
-M.
Shadow at the tips and
Shadow at the center like
A god who is honest about
What it means to be a god.
Absence
Presence
Glory
Absence
-M.
I am legally blind so I know—photography is a weird sport for me. What I am finding so lovely about it though is that I am often capturing with the camera things I would have never seen with my naked eye. To me, in the bright day, this gazania looked like a simple white blur on a field of messy green. It wasn’t until I got home and started working with the picture that I saw all it’s beautiful purple and that soft explosion of orange at the center. I look forward to many more visual surprises the camera is bound to catch for m.
Picking up any pen is hard. Opening my notebook is one of the Herculean trials—the hard one.
Getting past the rickety-ness is worse still. It’s like hearing Atlas’ ancient knees pop as he hefts the Earth one more day. One more day. One more day.
I dread goals. I dread the lazy, yawning “what next” after I reach one. I dread not reaching any.
I dread being a flake—but worse, a joyless flake. No one loves a joyless flake like no one loves a fat person who is not jolly. I dread also being the fat person who is not jolly.
I dread my credit card payments. I keep my dreaded credit cards under my dreaded pens to keep me from the dreadful using them.
I keep lip balm under the dread pens and cards. Most of all, I dread being kissed unready.
-M.
Photography Playbook Prompt: Something you dread.
M. N. Ashley 