life

Walking The Dogs On a Snowy Evening

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Whose yard is this? The dogs. (I know)
They both like it covered with snow
And lake-like puddles on the ground
And squishy grass that’s hard to mow

They will chew their sticks to the sound
Of wind blowing their ears around
With snow that bites with winter’s chill
They chew, oh — another stick found!

And the dogs always get a thrill
Smelling bunnies and things to kill
Noses to the ground, at my side
They sniff until the world grows still

The yard is icy, cold and wide
And I continue to abide
Please, it is time to go inside
Please, it is time to go inside

This poem is inspired by Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, but obviously with a less serious and sillier theme. I had the pattern of this poem in my head while out walking the dog one evening and I thought it might be fun to play around.

Wishing everyone a meaningful Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

If you’ve liked what you’ve read, check out my poetry book, Walking in Cemeteries available for purchase here.

Just a Pinch

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Every month, a woman sheds the lining of her uterus

Except, mine is scraping through me
like a sweater-rake that claws at those scratchy balls of wool
I’m shedding barbed wire and lava
Feeling red hot and deflated

Men laugh at a woman’s period
Think we’re over-exaggerating
Like that small-pinched-lie you’re told you’ll feel during a procedure

Why can’t we be honest about a woman’s pain

A woman feels pain as easy as a man succeeds
In this patriarchal society
Where a woman just bleeds
And bleeds
And bleeds

If you’ve liked what you’ve read, check out my poetry book Walking in Cemeteries available for purchase here.

tablecloth queen

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i moved a table into the kitchen
covered it with a tablecloth
and thought, this feels right
realizing later
that grandma covered her kitchen table

how i remember her white, wrinkled fingers
reaching for the mayonnaise
or ‘dressing’ as she called it
her fingers etched with hard work and mischief
how we’d sit on a Saturday afternoon and eat lunch
just sandwiches, chips, and pickles
and it felt like everything in life was alright

i eat my sandwich now and remember her
Christmas is gone, and she is too
but the table remains

and i sit here at my tableclothed table
eating my pickle
feeling like a queen

and honoring one

Happy New Year!! 🥳

If you’ve liked what you’ve read, check out my poetry book Walking in Cemeteries available for purchase here.

Unsure

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on campus
walking through a crowd of people
I still feel like that same nerdy girl
who didn’t know how to talk to ppl
who felt lost on the way to class
who couldn’t just be. normal.

except
I pay my own bills now
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon
and I’ve had sex

does it matter that I’m an adult
and was back then, too

but I still feel seventeen

who actually feels their age?
the president?

hah.

Thank God High School is Over

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It’s amazing how a cafeteria smell
Will instantly take you back
The way it smells like broccoli cheddar soup. Like cheese but with a funk
Only 20 seconds
And the anxiety flashes back
High school anxiety. And middle school anxiety.
Standing in line forever to get food
If you kept your head down, the kids that were lewd, that were cruel, left you alone, rushing to eat
Difficult to swallow when your heart is pounding

Choking down chicken and gravy
That sticks to your throat like plaster
Or a doughy pizza that’s okay. Thank God for Pepperoni

Then you got the years Michelle Obama tried to make us eat healthy, and everything palatable (fries and cookies) were taken away and replaced my wheat rolls that looked and tasted like cardboard
What will we eat now?

It was okay with friends
It was safe there
Laughing and creating together
But on my own, I felt anxiety about a crowd
A teenage boy loves an easy mark
Especially someone so gullible
Innocent, naive, and unaware of the world

A 16 year old should have been more aware
Should have been not so afraid
I didn’t know how to be
Every day was fight or flight
And mom would be instantly there. To make it all better

Dog Love

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dogs tell tales
like humans do
scratch an ear
steal a shoe

a stolen slipper
means, “I missed you”
a sock in mouth
means “hello,” too

love is the language
that dogs speak
except they say it
with a toy that squeaks

or slobbery kisses,
with head on your thigh
hands in warm fur
a deep, contented sigh

and muddy paw prints
on the kitchen floor
nose prints on the window
scratching the bathroom door

a minute is an hour
when you’re gone away
because they love us
every. single. day.

If you liked what you read, considering following me on Instagram @ajmorse_writes and follow my Facebook page A. J. Morse. My poetry book Walking in Cemeteries is available on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/cAsZUxa

And…because we love our two buds…some pics below! We recently got a new golden retriever puppy. Meet Teddy! You can follow them both on instagram @kodabear_and_teddy

Poem: Writing Mind

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Managed to spend a good four to five hours writing today! This is good news! I worked on a few projects at once, but one project I really got in to today. I realized I could probably submit it to the writer’s digest contest by June 1st, but to do that it needs some serious rewrites.

I got in the writers mindset a lot today and trying to emerge…is like waking up from a deep sleep. (At least it is for me.) I get this spacey expression on my face, and conversation is difficult, because part of me is still thinking about character’s dialogue in my head or planning which way a character is gong to go next.  It is an interesting feeling to say the least, but hey, at least I was productive today!

Pictured I snapped this weekend at the lake.

a writing sort of mood

everything sounds like poetry

blank stare

“Whaa…”

emerge from the world

like a band-aid ripped from a wound

jarred back to the present

words are like poetry

the trees are like poetry in motion

and everything is heavy, heavy, heavy

like a dark blanket

trapping the sun

in its shadows

It’s Okay to Admit You Need Help

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Things have been a little quiet here on the blogging front. Not intentionally. This week I’ve been sick with a lovely head cold and I have some new things going on in my life and thought I would take some time to chat about it.

It’s not easy…admitting that you need help. Help comes in many different forms. Emotional…educational…physical.

You might have heard me mention it a time or two: depression and anxiety.

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with Seasonal Affective disorder, which is basically depression that one gets based on the lack of sunlight in the winter months. It’s no fun when a chemical in your brain stops working properly and tells you not to be happy anymore.

I’ve…managed with that the last several years. But lately, it seems like the older I get the worse my anxiety is. I have always been a classified “worry-wort,” but there comes a time, where it’s not just worry. Where anxiety becomes something more than just double checking that your doors are locked after you locked them. Twice. And after you already check again for the third time.

The older I get, it seems like the more I don’t function properly. I’ve been debating back and forth why I don’t see myself as “normal” anymore. Why, I think that’s something I ought to be, and why normal isn’t really the same for anyone. What’s normal? And why is it something anyone wants to be, anyway?

But anyway, I digress. The point…I’ve started going to therapy.

Some people might think, so? I’ve gone to therapy, what’s the big deal? But this is a big deal for me. I’m not used to telling my life problems to people, and it’s not always easy admitting that you need help.

There’s no shame in admitting that you need help, and there’s no shame in getting that help. Depression and anxiety are not easy things, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

We all react to our life struggles in different ways, and we all have to find our own ways to encounter such challenges. I am not afraid to talk about my depression and anxiety, but I was afraid to get help. And I’m still afraid in some ways…do people look at me differently? Do I look different?

Does anyone judge me? But…I have to press on.

When I started this blog, I wanted to make sure it was a place that I could always come to, to make sure I was still writing. Now, I also want it to be a place where I can talk freely about my problems with depression and anxiety.

It’s something that needs to be talked about, and seeing as writers and creative sorts always seem to be the ones who struggle with depression and anxiety…we should all do a lot of talking about it.

Anyway, I hope you guys are having a great night, and I hope everyone had a great weekend.

Happy writing!

I Want to Live Life, Without Feeling Trapped

/ Ajmorse / 2 Comments

Having a case of the Sunday night blues tonight. Happens every night lately before the start of a new week. I love my freedom during the days on weekends. To enjoy the sunshine when I want, to read a book, to bake, to enjoy being human and alive and with others and the people who I love.

This current job I’m at now, while there are some decent people, I feel like everyone is so bored with life there. They are so bored and tired of the next day, of a job that keeps going with no end, of a retirement that is still eight years down the road.

It’s had me thinking a lot about what I want out of life, lately. I don’t want to work in a job where my life is taken from me. I want freedom…I want to travel…I want to live.

People judge millennials because we don’t want to work. But people forget many of us are not working in the job we went to school for. We don’t get money because we are doing what we love. We get money because we work at jobs, (very often) that no one else wants to work at.

I’m no slacker. I’ve worked a myriad of jobs to make money to pay the bills and I’ve been miserable at many of them, but I worked them anyway. Where does it say that we have to be miserable to make money?

People say that you should work hard, stay at a job, get retirement, but the sacrifice of life, freedom, and lack of money just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. Forgive me, but, I am no one else’s money-maker.

I want to live my life, without feeling like I’m trapped in my job. Is that really so much to ask?