april 12 . Johnson City,

you are a stillborn sneeze--
that tickle, that tingle in the back
of the throat, by the ears,
that makes me feel like I must have
forgotten something
or lost it in the chaos.


You are a discolored tattoo
on the blade of my shoulder
where only a few can see
the fading lines, the awkward
geometry,
permanent on me now.


You are a deck of cards
tattered and dirty at the edges,
played so many times with
so many people that 
the patterns are mixed now, 
the jokers too many.


You are a Lisa Frank diary,
the keeper of my secret history,
obfuscating the moral of the story
with your garish cover art,
the lock design replicated
so everyone has a key.


(revised 5.1.10)
**
I have had such trouble with this prompt (the prompt being "use a city as a title") because in my exodus I am really struggling to figure out what Johnson City means to me exactly.  So I wrote and rewrote the stupid poem, and finally came back to it today.  And as it turns out, I picked a terrible day to skip posting, since today is Tuesday--which means two prompts to work with instead of just one.  And to complicate matters, the prompts for April 13 are: 1, write a love poem; and 2, write an anti-love poem.  I feel like these poetry prompts are trying to destroy me.  But I'm giving it my best effort to fight back.


Also, is anyone actually reading this?  I've started to wonder.


Onward ho.


-Lindy