What I Fantasize About

Here is my inaugural post for the new online community, Writers Island. This site was started by Rob Kistner as a way to fill the void for our dearly departed Poetry Thursday.

The first prompt was a doozy: My Imaginary Life. I had so many half-formed thoughts running through my head when contemplating this one. I think it is because I am always engaged, simultaneously, with the life I lead and the life I want to lead. I know if I just work hard enough and do enough, I will have that elusive perfect life, but it always seems just outside of my reach. When writing my poem for this prompt, I had to really confront the reasoning behind this type of thinking. Why do I focus so much on the future when I have so much going for me in the present?

If this first prompt is indicative of the type of work we'll get to do on the Island, I'm excited for the project!

To Do List

38 Items

Light more candles in my home, feel
their warm glow spread across my face. Watch

much less television, spend less time
seeing that dull light flicker behind my eyes.

Clean the bathroom regularly; scrub
the bathtub until I can see myself reflected

in white porcelain. Worry less often and waste
less energy asking what if, why, and when.

Write more regularly. Stain my fingers
black and blue with ball point ink, smear my words

on clean white pages and find myself
within them. Meditate daily, before bed and

unwrinkle my mind, until it is fresh
as a blank white page. Lie

to myself less. Cradle myself in forgiving
arms and let go of everything I should have,

would have, could have, today. Rip
pictures out of magazines. Assemble slick

jagged collages of meaning. Find the one
word to paste in the middle, the one that explains it all.

Build a fort, using all the books I read
this year; feel safe in my constructed

storybook cottage. Wait for the bricks
to loosen and tumble on top of me. Pick up

the heaviest, open it at its center, and read
what’s written on the yellowed page. Do

whatever it tells me. Stop constructing
perfect endings before their time.

Wait until the necessary one emerges.
Record everything I eat, read write. Write

down every time I sleep, exercise, and breathe.
Do more, do less, think more, and think less

Spend time inside, then outside, then inside
again. Be louder. Be more silent.

Write this list daily in my journal, tear
out the page – swallow it. Discover

the perfect combination of word and intention, action
and inaction, that unlocks this heavy, deadlocked door.