Day 18: A poem I wrote called "Bruce Wayne: A Performance Review"

Remember how I said I'd never share any of my poetry?

Well, I'm BREAKIN' THE RULES!!!

I had brunch with my friend, Amanda Ranth, and we were discussing why we write poetry: to express ourselves. I was telling her about how normally my poetry comes from this deep, sad, twisty place of longing and that's why I don't share my work publicly.

But then I remembered going to a MeetUp group called "Poetry in the City of Trees" for #NaPoWriMo in April and using writing prompts for the first time. I started to tell her about this silly one I had written. 

"Dude," she smiled, "You need to POST that SHIT!" What can I say? The lady's got a point!

via

Writing Prompt 2: Write a poem about a superhero coming to your house and confronting you about something. Somewhere in the poem, you have to state what your superpower is.

"Bruce Wayne: A Performance Review"

by Steph Cortes

Somewhere on the ledge of the roof of my mind palace, there is Batman.

He moves through my dark yet illustrious city of shadows with nimble and ept precision

as if he's been there too long.

He appears at random, as a dark knight does

to bring to my attention the turn my Gotham-y mind has taken.

"It's far worse than it ever was," he rasps,

not quite a growl, but not far removed.

"No one should be expected to contain 

the havoc of this many villains!
Not even with my freelance vigilante brigade!"

The more he waxes on, the hoarser he rumbles,

the less patience I have.

No longer tolerating his nonsense, I turn toward him.

"You were brought in to protect, Wayne," I start,

my knuckle whitening, readying for battle.

"Are you not up to the task the headhunter

promised you were sooo qualified to accomplish?"

His mask hid his raised brow, but the micro-gesture of a lax jaw have him away.

Having pierced through his expensive armor, I went on:

"If I must, I can tell you in which order to 

bring each issue 'to justice'," I mocked his voice...

"As I know you won't kill them per your contract."

Smirking, I grabbed my phone to compile a list in a text.

"But make no mistake: if I have to use my deductive powers again to do your job for you,

I'm going with Joker."

- 2:54 PM

3 April 2016

depression/tackling issues

Day 4: Secret Poet & You Didn't Know It

There's a part of yourself that you choose to share with the world as a creative human. And there's also that secret hidden part that needs to make stuff that's completely unrelated. Sometimes that unrelated stuff sparks some other creative fire you had no idea existed.

Or at least that's how it is with me.

My hidden area is poetry.

Yes, as a depressed fat girl, poetry became a (cliche) way to express myself passionately where I had no other outlet. I had notebooks full of it for years. And a lot of it sucked, sure.

But some of it is really good.

And I have rarely ever shared it.

Maybe that's on purpose. Maybe I don't want the product of that special secret space wherein I cathartically create to be judged harshly.

Because anything you put out there gets judged, ammirite?

But there's a lot that went into that (awkward AF) statement. Special things don't always beg to be shared. Often they just need to be cherished.

And I suppose that's what poetry is to me.

When I was digging into my family history, I found that I was related to a famous poet in Nicaragua, Alfonso Cortes. but although he is celebrated for his metaphysical prose (courses are taught about his stuff... which is amazing), he died chained to the window bars of an asylum.

So, it's not that I'm saying that sharing poetry and crazy are besties, chained to each other in every way. I'm just saying - it's scary to put things out there that might come from a deep, dark place that may or may not belong hidden in an asylum.

In a society where we are asked to constantly share our lives (I don't need to know you're eating waffles - that only makes me super jelly, you guys), it's nice to think some aspects of our myriad of interests are special enough to be clutched close to our souls.

-fin-

- Steph 

[post written on 15 May '16, but not published until 16 May due to religious reasons.]