I discovered the #VSS365 hash tag on Twitter recently, and I’ve started to participate in it. It’s been a lot of fun. I’d like to keep track of them from now on, on a monthly basis. Since I’ve only just started, here are the few I wrote for January. Enjoy.
Month: February 2019
Train Tracks
The train tracks used to
speak to me.
As susurration –
a withdrawing tide at my ankles,
a lariat around my leaden heart.
A disguised lullaby,
like an offer from bathtub water of
murmured matrimony.
– Rachel R. Vasquez, September 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
While I still struggle with depression and anxiety on and off in my life, there was a time that it was so deep, the train tracks tempted me daily. Clearly, I never gave in. However, it’s something powerful enough, that I wanted to write about it. If you have thoughts of suicide, please seek help. Please know someone out there loves you.
Madison & 43rd
Madison and 43rd at one,
I’ve left a window’s flock of owls
to peer at my empty desk.
Bowls of bloody plumes and wood whites
lead me past two gargoyles
with brooch bellies and toothless grins,
boasting of equitable trust
in spite of their u’s carved as v’s.
I’m lured under acorn lamps hanging from grape stems,
perhaps to feed the steel brachiosaurus’ with
pendants in their mouths.
They appear to be asleep at this time of day
or wary
of Mercury, Hercules and Minerva
loitering above the tourists.
Nirosta eagles,
terraced crown guards,
perch above both,
but I’ve safely made it past.
In spite of the hard cuffed men who
dodge the bearded man on the floor,
with frayed jeans, a baseball cap, and converses –
hobo or hipster?
– Rachel R. Vasquez, September 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
A poem I wrote during lunch break when I worked near Grand Central and the Chrysler building. Frank O’Hara has always been an inspiration of mine. I have his “Lunch Poems” book.
Rachel's Floetry 