In April 2022, it was my first time participating in NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). You can find my poems from that year here. I skipped NaPoWriMo in 2023 because I was busy writing my PhD thesis. It was worth it, because I have graduated and moved across the country and I’m loving the east coast, but now that I have more flexibility of my time, I want to participate in 2024. I will be writing a poem a day in response to prompts posted online to this website. I will update this post with my daily poems.
*The italicized text gives the context and prompt for each day
DAY 0: Pick a word from the given list and write a poem titled “A [word]” or “The [word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition. (I chose “cage” and my poem is titled “A cage”)
I’m struggling to understand what we mean when we use the word “love”
because I think many use the word to describe what really is a “cage”
The measure of how much love someone has for you
is based on how much they shrink themselves to fit your expectations
spread themselves out to fill all the boxes of all your needs
The measure of how much you love someone
is based on how tightly you lock their cage,
how impermeable the walls are to others
What if instead we unlocked the door
and instead quantified someone’s love
by how much, in the absence of a lock or impermeable walls,
they still feel compelled to make the choice to stay.
DAY 1: A poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you remember having liked but that you haven’t read in a long time
Once upon a time, I was a die-hard Twilight fan
Not a casual enjoyer who read the books and watched the movies,
But a thirteen-year-old consumed with an overwhelming obsession,
Spending each evening poring over fan sites, interviews, and YouTube rants,
Waiting in line for hours at meet and greets, bookstores, and theaters,
Developing my craft as a writer through fanfiction,
And bonding with friends by sprinkling references into casual conversation.
To a young girl acutely aware of her disinterest in men,
painfully separating her from her peers,
a fictional emotionally unavailable vampire written by a woman
made a remarkably appealing suitor.
I found it easy to place myself in the shoes of Bella Swan,
a character with little personality
aside from being an awkward and clumsy misfit –
a perfect mold to host the yearning mind of any average thirteen-year-old girl.
I finally understood what it felt like to be swept off my feet by a boy
and this fantasy temporarily bridged the gap between me and my peers –
the fantasy of the development and ups and downs of a relationship
that I later learned more accurately characterized abuse than love.
By age fifteen, my interest had not only waned,
but turned to disgust as the remarkably poor ending to the series,
involving an impossible birth and unrealistic bows tying up all the conflicts
finally knocked Twilight off my mind’s pedestal.
For years, I refused to acknowledge this shameful aspect of my past
but now, in my late twenties,
hardened by the harsh realities of truths stranger than fiction,
I look at back at it with fondness, less for the story
than the memories of what it felt like to love something so much,
and to feel so deeply bonded to friends
who are now just Instagram story views.
DAY 2: A platonic love poem written directly to the object of your affections describing at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing
Seeing your name pop up on my notification screen
is like being tucked into a warm blanket,
whether it is a doting image of your spider babies,
a neurospicy meme, or a tiktok about c-PTSD,
a long winded essay making me question
my conception of attraction, gender, and society’s boxes,
or a rant raging at people who hurt me on my behalf,
I relish in its warmth and safety.
Through every 5 am workout at KREC,
every walk through century city mall
pressed juicery freeze in hand,
each snap accumulating in our streak that you paid to restore,
each drunken handstand, cartwheel, and split leap,
every facemask applied on your couch
while alternating pets of your dog and your boba pillow,
your overpowering biting bluntness delivers the message
that each drop of sweetness is one I can trust.
We are different flavors of queer
and yet you have never made me feel afraid
to stand in my truth, which was in stark contrast
to the urge to hide I’ve felt in the past
And I hope you know how much I love you
Even if I don’t always express it in that way
For being exactly who you are,
nothing more or nothing less,
not fitting to any existing box or label,
but creating your own that is fully yours,
and letting me in to appreciate it.
DAY 3: A surreal prose poem
A throbbing heart, bulging and releasing in a rhythmic pattern, racing when that fated text arrives, sinking, dragging your chest to the ground when you entertain thoughts of the thoughts of hopelessness that always remain as a background, you quiet them so you can function normally but with each passing year it becomes less and less simple. Your heart pins you to the bed, as if it’s a heavy magnet pulled to the core of the frame, pulling yourself out is like trying to swim through molasses, the viscosity creating resistance to flow so thick that you lose all attachment to delusions of grandeur. The fog settles in your brain, you are a rat pressing levers haphazardly and repeatedly in hopes of the occasional intermittent pellet, relying on dopamine hits when serotonin is flushed out – dishes pile up, small tasks appear gargantuan, sleep is the only comfort.
DAY 4: Write a poem in which you take your title or some language/ideas from The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts.
Having PTSD is like having a mind
with an invisible underground jungle –
to have these memories stick out in your consciousness
would bring a pain much too great,
so your mind buries it all to protect you.
Although these stored memories aren’t visible on the surface,
every now and then something will prod them,
and the effect can be felt
despite their invisibility;
sometimes, it’s impossible to trace
the root that leads to the source.
Although trauma changes the brain,
so can healing,
and these invisible underground jungles
can be harnessed for good,
personal experiences driving you
to fight for change.
DAY 5: A poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc)
To be safe,
said the one with anxious attachment,
is to have the repeated reassurance
that the one you love
does not feel hatred,
or worse, indifference;
to be safe is to experience
a steady stream
of communication
and responsiveness.
To be safe,
said the one with avoidant attachment,
is to have the repeated reassurance
that the one you love
understands your need for space
and refrains from enmeshment;
to be safe is to experience
intermittent periods
of aloneness
and independence.
DAY 6: A poem rooted in “weird wisdom” — something objectively odd that someone told you once, and that has stuck with you ever since
A “situationship”, said the gay man on TikTok
is a situation to one
and nothing to the other
I think of how she traced my features with her eyes,
comparing them to the woman in the Portrait of the Roman Lady —
an incredibly flattering comparison —
Her eyes shining with the novelty of a first ever date
My eyes weary and regretful,
Looking away.
She traced my features with her eyes
while my eyes traced someone else’s in my mind
Someone else who was probably tracing with their fingers
someone else’s who isn’t me.
Why could I not get them out of my head
as I walked along Benjamin Franklin road
from the museum back to Center City,
the winter wind swirling around the frostiness in my heart.
The one I wanted had asked to meet me on this very day
and I had defiantly refused,
hyping myself by playing “Falling” by Sanjana
and “Not My Problem” by Dua Lipa,
for once in my life, choosing myself
and saving my presence for softness
that could catch my heart as I fell.
I longed for nothing more than a companion,
one who was actually ready for a relationship with me,
but now that I was with one,
I found back tears because she wasn’t the one I wanted,
longing for nothing more than to be left alone in my bedroom,
free to wallow in a peaceful puddle of self pity.
The pang of regret as I absentmindedly hummed
along to songs about Santa and sleigh bells
playing in the Target where we went to pick up Kombucha,
and she gazed into my vacant eyes,
a sweet smile forming that I dreaded being the one to wipe off.
“You should keep singing. It’s cute.”
A “situationship”, said the gay man on TikTok
is a situation to one
and nothing to the other,
and I wish it could’ve been something to me,
I was on my knees, screaming at my heart
to feel something
but there’s nothing she could’ve said or done
that would make it stir,
just as there is nothing I can say or do
to mean something to those who didn’t want me.
How foolish it is to want something
that doesn’t want me,
lamenting that I’m never the chosen one
when I also don’t choose those who are choosing me.
DAY 7: Write a poem titled “Wish You Were Here” that takes its inspiration from the idea of a postcard. Consistent with the abbreviated format of a postcard, your poem should be short, and should play with the idea of travel, distance, or sightseeing.
Wish you were here, Mom,
Because maybe then you wouldn’t be so convinced
that you only got into grad school because you were pretty.
Wish you were here,
Because maybe then you would know that bisexuality exists;
you wouldn’t see random sexual attraction towards your woman classmate
as something all women experience, to be ignored.
Wish you were here,
Because maybe then you would find someone
who doesn’t belittle all your accomplishments,
or maybe you wouldn’t feel pressured to marry at all,
trading your ambitions to bring me into this world;
maybe I wouldn’t be here then,
but you wouldn’t have given everything away.
Wish you were here,
with your spirit still intact.
DAY 8: A poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason
Maybe if you’d put in your profile
that you weren’t looking for anything serious,
our connection would have never left the app,
nothing more than a glance through and a swipe left.
Maybe your reasoning for not disclosing this information broadly
was because you weren’t looking for anything serious
with me
and yet we sent back and forth daily text paragraphs
for over a month,
you listened to every song I recommended,
every podcast, read every poem I wrote
and looked at every painting,
and sent back your own that felt like a stark reflection.
I feel more alone having met you than I did before —
wracking my brain, scanning my features in the mirror
trying to pinpoint what was wrong with me,
not simply because you didn’t choose me,
but because I had allowed myself to build hope
and grown an attachment while you hadn’t.
Intimacy isn’t new to you like it is to me,
and it’s caused you pain before that you never deserved,
so maybe that’s why it feels safer for you to engage in it
in a way where you feel in control at my expense.
At times I wish we had never met,
but without our meeting
I would have never known that I could still feel,
and if I could feel so loved by the wrong one,
imagine how magical it will be with the right one.
DAY 9: An ode celebrating an everyday object
Before jumping into the pool,
My arms are pinned to my sides,
Fists clenched, shoulders hunched,
Sucking in my stomach, praying
the protrusion isn’t as noticeable as it feels,
Eyes darting left and right,
Avoiding mirrors and reflective windows.
But as soon as the water reaches me shoulder deep,
Years of damage of diet culture melting away —
just for the two to three hours my body is submerged —
My body becomes one with the water,
Each disc in my spine stretching and smiling,
Legs and pointed feet shooting up towards the ceiling
And it should be impossible to hold verticals upside down,
Barracuda thrusts into the air
before sinking rapidly to the pool floor,
or spinning down like a long pointy top —
this would all be immensely painful
if it weren’t for the nose-clip.
A humble object by appearance,
simply a small bendy piece of metal with rubber ends;
you can buy a large pack of them for 5.99,
or free, if you’re resourceful and keep your eyes open —
tens, twenties, thirty stray ones floating around,
some caught in crevices, under benches, some sitting in the deep end,
extra ones hooked onto your teammates’ swimsuit straps if you ask.
Although it sometimes can cling too tight,
leaving temporary symmetrical red marks
on each side, where you would expect to see a nose-ring,
without the nose-clip, water would shoot up your nostrils
every time you hold a vertical —-
and as someone who has accidentally forgotten mine,
I can assure you, it is not fun.
Such a simple piece of metal
essential to the operations
of any artistic swimming program —
imagine something so insignificant being
the glue that holds my mental health intact.
DAY 10: Write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing
Making a commitment to drag yourself out of bed
at 6 in the morning every day to go to the gym before work,
when you are weighed down by occupational burnout,
is as elusive and challenging
as trying to pick up a noodle in the sink;
even as you finally manage to grab ahold of it
and begin to lift,
it squirms out of your grasp,
a slippery, slimy entity
that does not want to be caught.
DAY 11: A monostitch, a one-line poem
Being unclear on what you want will lead you to accept crumbs in place of love.
DAY 12: Write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.”
Most of my family is in India, but we had one aunt who lived just an hour away from our house in Los Angeles and I was the first child in my entire extended family to be born in America, three years before my brother and cousin were born, three days apart, after which I was no longer the baby. Over the two boys, I towered as I bossed them around, grasping at my sole opportunity at power, until their sex assigned at birth gave them a greater capacity to grow, and while my brother only caught up to me after I stopped caring, my cousin’s growth spurt occurred at the same time as mine despite my premature age, only he continued to grow and grow until he could stare down at the parting in my hair from a ten-head distance, he was always good at basketball because he could simply lift his arm an inch and the basket would stretch out to meet him, minimal exertion necessary to pass the ball through. “You’re so tall!” reaches his ears before a hello from strangers and kindred spirits alike, and when asked if he finds this annoying, he shrugs and reminds you that he’s never known a world any different to compare it to.
DAY 13: Start by creating a “word bank” of ten simple words. They should only have one or two syllables apiece. Five should correspond to each of the five senses (i.e., one word that is a thing you can see, one word that is a type of sound, one word that is a thing you can taste, etc). Three more should be concrete nouns of whatever character you choose (i.e., “bridge,” “sun,” “airplane,” “cat”), and the last two should be verbs. Now, come up with rhymes for each of your ten words. Use your expanded word-bank, with rhymes, as the seeds for your poem. Your effort doesn’t actually have to rhyme in the sense of having each line end with a rhymed word, but try to use as much soundplay in your poem as possible.
The best part of my day is the stroll across the river –
a break in the bustle of the city,
The goal is to reach the office on time, yet every day, I shiver
in the rustling wind blown by water, holding my breath to avoid the shitty
smell that is inevitable with the amount of trash
scattered across the bustling city of Philadelphia,
but somehow you ignore it as you look down from the bridge at the grass
lining the river’s edge, a riverfront park accessible by stairs
lined with pink trees, a stark contrast to the green, trees that are rare
in my hometown. Sipping passionfruit green tea, I walk
across the bridge, where I’ve sent
many snaps to friends back home,
or occasionally will call them to vent
about my love life. At the edge of the bridge, “Hold Hands”
is scrawled in chalk, and I hope I’ll have plans
to hold someone’s soon.
DAY 14: Write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., “Because,” “Forget,” “Not,” “If”). This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery.
Forgive the little girl searching the grocery store for her mother,
Forgive the new sister watching all their attention being snatched by the baby,
Forgive the kindergartener crying alone on the playground,
Forgive the middle schooler counting calories,
Forgive the high schooler using grades to hide her flaws,
Forgive the college freshman fleeing dancefloors to libraries,
Forgive the junior who dropped out to go to art school, only to return,
Forgive the girl who ate her feelings in cheese fries,
Forgive the girl who vomited her meals to shrink,
Forgive the girl who let him get away with it,
Forgive the girl who tried to convince them she was lovable,
Forgive the girl who forgot to choose herself.
DAY 15: Take a look at @StampsBot, and become inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. (The stamp I used for inspiration is pictured below)
My heart is the sun,
shining through the clouds,
leading me through darkness,
shining on the beaming flowers,
making them open up and glisten.
Centering your heart makes your world less gloomy;
taking that step to let it shine
encourages others to open up.
DAY 16: Write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.
The road winds through bright green hills, scattered with trees,
leaves that turn red in October before falling off to reveal bare branches,
sprouting pink flowers in April.
The sun smiles at the grass and the leaves as it sprinkles
light that makes them glisten as they float with the wind,
peeking out from behind the hills,
a gleaming egg yolk in a sunny-side-up continental breakfast,
creating a water-color-worthy gradient backdrop.
Intermittent dopamine spikes created the fairytale,
and a hint of it returns every time you drive through.
Beauty is rendered even more beautiful when soaked in madness.
DAY 17: Write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music. (Mine is about Strangemirror by Shyamala)
They say actions matter more than words,
But sometimes words matter more than actions,
Meeting them was like meeting a warped reflection of myself,
Convincing me to care,
Showing with all their efforts and actions
they’re looking in a strange mirror too,
But their words say they don’t want a relationship —
what more is a relationship
than what we already have?
All I want is what you’re giving me already.
Maybe it’s the comfort of knowing
that you’re not going to give me more
than what I’m already getting
that makes me want you more —
maybe I’m unavailable too,
and that’s why looking at you
is such a strange mirror.
DAY 18: Write a poem in which the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else, and explains why.
Their giggles float in one ear
straight out the other,
never quite reaching my brain
because I don’t understand
what is so appealing about
rock-hard abs and an Adam’s apple.
An invisible line creates a divide between
myself and femininity —
I feel like an imposter as I apply eyeliner,
blush, and mascara,
as if these things weren’t made for me.
Maybe I wouldn’t be invited
if they knew I didn’t understand,
that my heart fluttered more
when I accidentally brushed fingers
with women —
Maybe he wouldn’t have screamed at me
and maybe she wouldn’t have teased me
about being in love with him,
because the truth was far more shameful.
I wish I could understand
less for the rock-hard abs
and more for the desire to be included
with women.
DAY 19: What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.
No response is a response, the Instagram memes said,
and it was the four-year silence that haunted me the most,
knowing that they were angry with me
knowing I had fucked up in some way
knowing it had happened that day
sprawled on their couch after a night out at the gay bar,
when my secrets came tumbling out.
Their uncharacteristic silence,
after spending months chasing after my friendship
under the guise of seeking grad school advice,
moving our connection
from the communal couches of our college women’s center,
baby queers in a coming out therapy group, to our apartments.
Diploma in hand, I made the transition
from college to grad school,
but their words from that summer in between haunted me,
intruding my sleep and first-year stochastic modeling lectures —
“You’re privileged,
because you were never attracted to him.
If you just want to wash your hands,
it’ll be on you if he hurts others.”
The unfairness haunted me,
how they made me the monster instead of him —
turning me into a villain for my pain, for my avoidance,
for my desire to hide to keep myself safe,
the lack of attraction, his anger about it,
the confusion of it all which drove me
to those communal couches, to their living room couch,
only to be re-traumatized.
Four years later,
a seemingly innocuous Facebook message
under the guise of casual inquiries about grad school,
no response is a response,
and my lack of response led them to
hunt me down with incomprehensible angry audio messages,
leading to more questions than closure
but it no longer haunts me
because I understand
they haunted me because something else
haunted them.
DAY 20: Write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents.
March 14, 2020.
A joint birthday party, less than 15 people
drove two to the emergency room,
one more bedridden and gasping for air.
Weeks later, the first time we set foot into a Ralphs,
people on the escalator donning white face masks —
straight out of a science fiction novel.
Just months earlier, we had laughed
in a coffee shop in Korea town, bare-faced,
how her friend’s friend’s sister, a manager at Target, had noticed
an uptick in the number of moisturizing face masks being purchased,
our laughter at the stupidity of our fellow consumers
was soon drowned out by the reality of our own —
our ignorance of the gravity of the pandemic,
leading us to neglect to cancel our party plans.
DAY 21: Write a poem that repeats or focuses on a single color.
Pink is the color I was assigned at birth
and pink is the color I stated as my favorite when asked,
a rush of delight in discovering that adding a red speck of paint
to a white clump produces a lush, rosy color.
At age five, my best friend said,
contrary to other girls, her favorite was yellow.
Suddenly, I worried that I wasn’t interested enough
and scrambled for a new favorite, settling on lime green.
Years later, when my sexuality brought my femininity into question,
I circled back to pink, because although it was
assigned to me at birth, I had done enough
rounds with the others to have the conviction
it was something I would choose
even if it weren’t something I was
assigned.
DAY 22: Write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined.
DAY 23: Write a poem about, or involving, a superhero, taking your inspiration from these four poems in which Lucille Clifton addresses Clark Kent/Superman.
If I had met you now
two years older than you were
when my teenage self watched you
hustle back and forth in the classroom lab
with stars in my young eyes,
I would have known
that you were no superhero.
you were just a girl, just like me,
maybe with one extra college degree,
but hardly any more sense.
you couldn’t save me from my demons
even though your attentive ears to my emotions,
unlike any friend my age,
made me so convinced that you could.
hyper-aware of my power
to influence young minds,
I make sure to hold boundaries
with my mentees,
in their teens and early twenties,
because unlike you,
I don’t enjoy the pedestal,
and they won’t enjoy their disappointment
when I inevitably fall off.
DAY 24: Write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. (I chose the song Sugar by Men I Trust)
Won’t you leave me, won’t you, ’cause I don’t have time for indignations,
and the more time I spend with you, the more my conviction increases
that there is something fundamentally wrong with me, that I’m not worthy
of being loved in full, but loved in part, because you won’t leave.
A part of me doesn’t want you to leave and wants to cling to the
crumbs of affection you give me, because I’ve been starving for so long
that crumbs have started to feel like a meal.
Maybe it’s not that you’re intentionally withholding the meal;
right now, crumbs are all you have to give,
because your past traumas have made you guard your heart;
I want to hold space for that from a distance, wishing you healing,
while still acknowledging that your pain is
not mine to carry.
DAY 25: Write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire,” a set of questions drawn from Victorian-era parlor games, and adapted by modern interviewers. You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions.
DAY 26: Write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.
DAY 27: Write an “American sonnet.” What’s that? Well, it’s like a regular sonnet but . . . fewer rules? Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter.
DAY 28: Try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.
DAY 29: If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.
DAY 30: Write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.
QueerNeuroMathGirl 