Posts for June 25, 2026 (page 6)

Registration photo of HJ for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

“Get over them.”

“Get over them.”
It was 2 years ago.
it was a year ago.
it was 7 years ago.
It was last month
it was 10 years ago.
It was yesterday.

but they always find me.

they’re hands cant find mine,
but they can find my wrist.
my hips,
my thighs, 
my throat,
my chest,
my pants.

I still cant wear that fucking skirt. 
My favorite skirt.
it sits in my drawer
wanted,
but hated.

The words that have fallen from their mouth.
“faggot”
“slut”
“bitch”
follow me around like a demon pretend to be my guardian angel.

The actions that they can’t undo.
The places they’ve smacked,
my body they’ve thrown.

All for being me.
All for trying to show kindness.

I deserve sunshine.


Registration photo of Allisa Ragan Farthing for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

End of Days

I packed a bag with snacks and things to do
Marianne’s new book.
Colored pencils.
Coloring books.
Pens and paper.

The final hours have begun.
A bedside vigil,
Her son and her sister.

A small moth has gotten in.
It flitters around the room
And lights on the window.

It, too, is looking for release.


Registration photo of Jay St. Orts for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Village Pizza

I was visiting mom

In her upstairs apartment

Above the first pizza place in this village

She said

If you can and want to

Come stay with me for awhile

This summer

Live here

I would love that

We haven’t been together

For more than a couple weeks a year

Since 1980

So, my boy, think about it, please.

I was waist-deep in university and girl thoughts  and willful abandon…

I took her plea seriously,

But I didn’t take her up on the offer.

I will regret this forever.

She was hardened by her own experiences

Yet she broke though her own defenses

To tell her first-born:

Please come back to me

We didn’t have enough time together, then

Come back, my boy.

 

And now

The time is long gone.

The pie is cold.


Registration photo of Pat Owen for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Grace

As a young child being picked up
from school, she says to the
grandmother driver,
how was your day?
or on another day,
how do you feel about cursive?

On being asked if she’s afraid
of leaving home to move
across the world, she says
not today.

She’s made of different stuff 
than me–chooses the youngest
child to be on her team
for a family competition–
knows it’s not about winning.

Joy just beneath the surface
ready to erupt
spontaneity bubbling
mouth wide
head back
abandon.


Registration photo of R.J. Gordon for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Fibbonacci Falls in Love

I
can’t
speak the
language or
read between its lines
but the important equation
still shows that you and I are meant to be two halves, whole.
My soul is yours. I’ll tell the world in every sign and sound available. Just teach me.


Registration photo of Michele for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Original “I”

Long before Horace, women wrote
in self-reflection on their arts.
Let’s take Enheduanna, 2300 BCE,
she etched in clay mí-dug₄-ga

splendid utterances— in her hymns,
her poetry, of the birth of a poem
like the birth of a child:
Painful. Long. Ending in bliss.

Oh— and our Enheduanna
ripped from her body the very first “I,”
the “I” of ourselves known
through our very own poems.

And then, of course, as women do
after a long day of work,
she brought home crescent-shaped moon cakes—
and fried it all up in a pan.


Registration photo of Phebe Szatmari for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

So Many Open Windows

A river can nourish
an entire landscape
without selecting
a favorite tree.

Perhaps I spent years
standing beside
a reservoir
waiting for permission
to drink.

Believing abundance
required a witness.

Believing devotion
required exclusivity.

Now I suspect
the heart functions
more like a muscle
than a lock.

The more it is used,
the more capable
it becomes.

Which does not eliminate
loneliness.

Or longing.

Or the desire.

To find someone
whose laugh
lands in my core.

It simply means
I have stopped postponing
my affection.

Stopped treating love
like a resource
that must be carefully saved
for the correct person.

The world remains
full of people
in need of kindness.

Animals.

Trees.

Friends.

Neighbors.

Entire galaxies
of consciousness
moving through their brief
and bewildering existence.

I have decided
to love them all.


Registration photo of suz for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

you should be afraid

a day is arriving
blooming inside me like a torn fetus
dripping down the inside of my thighs
like slick and clotted menstrual blood

a moment is arriving
sharpening within me like a well-loved axe
cinching like a break-rib corset

for over thirty years
I have swallowed dutifully
like a good woman
such a good woman
my mouth knows the taste
of semen of violation of salty fingers
of angry men and their fearful belittlements
of endless smallening violences
that every woman knows the taste of
are you sure you know what you’re
doing saying asking implying tempting
showing asking doing saying
wanting doing asking saying tempting
doing existing birthing asking saying 
implying
angry angry angry angry angry angry
why are women so angry?

too late for questions
it has landed in my body
this death of my tameness
the world is all teeth and
so I am become teeth
the world disregards my blood
it is time to make him bleed

Content Warning

The poet decided this submission may have content that's not for everyone. If you'd like to see it anyway, please click the eyeball icon.


Registration photo of Makenna Delap for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

The Word of the Lord

From the age of five, 

I’d memorized the Lord’s Prayer, 
The Apostle’s Creed
and the Great Thanksgiving 
 
I read my Bible head to toe 
filled it with rainbow highlights, 
fixated on Genesis;
“for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”
 
I murmured those same words 
praying to hear them returned.
Never did I hear His voice, 
like the prophets claimed. 
 
I hear it in the sound of waves
The wind weaving through the trees
Rollicking laughter and hushed giggles
The cadence in animal calls
If I learn the patience to listen.

Registration photo of Jennifer Barricklow for the LexPoMo 2026 Writing Challenge.
Category
Poem

Hope is that sonar

by which we locate
one another and know
we belong
to each other and find
our way forward
together

(after Cynthia Borgeault)