Prose Poem: Winter

Winter

Plastic over the windows, a Superman blanket strung up between the kitchen and the dining room.  Fingers red, pain when you touch anything, impossible to type.

The cats come inside and as time wears on, stir-crazy they go to war.

We play board games.  The school leaves the doors open on the swimming pool and our complaints mean nothing.

Scraping clear the driveway, nose running, face flushed with blood.  The dog disappears in the white expanse, too small to keep her head above water.

Tunnels dug into hillsides, sitting on the furnace, nightgown billowing around me.  The cat knocks the tree over again.  Pine needles fall like rain, and we sleep under mounds of blankets; the wind whips at the windows, but we won’t let it in.

Inside, the winter cannot catch us.

Poem: Everything On Red

Everything on Red

By Meghan D. Coates

I’m not a gambling man--

I’ve hedged my bets since I was small,

I don’t take risks or put things on the line that I don’t want to lose,

But you make me want to gamble.

You make me want to drink

And go for twelve AM walks through the city,

Make me want to throw caution to the wind

(and hearts, too)--

I’ve never asked someone for their number

But I’m asking for yours.

There’s a lot I could lose--

I’m not a gambling man,

And it scares me, giving this power over,

To you,

To fate,

To God--

But we all have to learn to lose control sometime.

I’d rather choose when

Than gamble on fate picking the right time,

Place,

Man--

So I’ll gamble on you,

Here,

Now.

Dear Dealer;

Everything on Red.

--Published in 2016 by Eber & Wein Publishing

Poem: Thirteen

Thirteen

by Meghan D. Coates

Originally published by Eber&Wein

You fall in love

when you're too young to feel,

With a boy

who doesn't know which you is real,

And you'll like him for ages,

sure as you love him for hours,

And your diary pages

like compressed dying flowers

Will speak of your conviction,

of addiction and pain,

A childish obsession

That sours and fades.

You fall in love

when you're too young to feel

And you use it all up

(but it’s not even real)

4/13 Celebration Poem: Moirail For Sale

Happy 8th birthday, Homestuck!

As a fan-to-the-death, I've taken it upon myself to offer up some Alpha Rose/Dave poetry in celebration. To any Homestucks still out there: May your pesterchum accounts never be deactivated and your strife deck be ever of a deadly kind.

Moirail For Sale

There are many Daves,

But you are not mine--

There are fewer Roses,

And I am not yours.

It’s just how things have always been.

It’s a fact,

And nothing more.

And yet,

you are close.

More than anything I want my Dave,

But I would play your Rose

If you wanted--

I would offer up my comfort,

A moirail-for-sale--

Ha!  What a pitiful mop I am for pale,

All my diamondic trysts drift apart

Or turn from pale to pail--

Only when our friends were there to stop me did I keep from wanting you.

I should disclose these things to you;

It would only be fair.

But I don’t want to scare you off--

The only Dave I’ve met who tastes the barest bit like mine--

So I lie.

Through omission.

If you call that lying.

(do you?)

...

Moirail for Sale:

A slut for pale

Whose Diamondic desires always turn to the pail.

Morail for hire:

I’ll dampen your ire

And seal every kiss with a sharp lack of fire

(I am, after all, a wonderful liar.)