The birds are singing at night, in silent snowscapes where touch is the only color left.

Ghost stories rise with decaf steam and smoke from candles I’ve left burning.

Even solitude has a hum to it, and I carry each small catastrophe like a violin string

against the bow of my breastbone. Does time open up old wounds too?

Do I linger like an old lover’s perfume? You want the moon? I spend my days

watching the rain fall, counting my wishes on each drop that bowls over into a rivulet.

I bring my burdens of postcards and pine needles to 11:11, like a carinval that only

shows up when you’re sad. “Is it that time already?” she heaves with a sigh, all out

of lullabies for lost girls December dreaming of ways to numb the heart, and the moon.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@theconstantpoet - “postcards & pine needles” + “candles I’ve left burning” @angelealowes - “spending my day watching the rain fall” + “the birds are singing at night” @papertearspoetry - “lullabies for lost girls” @arcanapoetrypress - “I carry each small catastrophe” - from Where the Monarchs Never Die by Rocio Franco @chio_la_chingona @lipstick.stains_ - “the burdens of 11:11” @jessaure.poetry - “silent snowscapes” @kaytpoems - “even silence has a hum to it” + “do I linger like an old lover’s perfume?” @imlaurengreen - “is it that time alreay?” @amykaypoetry - “‘You want the moon?’ - from It’s a Wonderful Life” @libbyjenner.poetry - “Christmas smells like” @m.l.macdonald - “scorched afterglow” @chris_kads + @alinakay66 + @esb.poems - “December dreaming” @elenaspoetry - “how to numb your heart” @arica_writes + @domarleypoet + @forgotten.dumpling + @imandq + @ml.mecham - “our stories rising with the steam” @loisofthehearth - “where touch is the only color left” + “like a carnival that only shows up when you’re sad” @alexismromo - “Does time open up old wounds too?”