April Second: NaPoWriMo: Echoes of Shared Laughter Across Life's Distance

Finally, here’s today’s optional prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections (like a letter is written to “you”), and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.

Remember how we'd laugh until tears streamed down our faces?
In the library, stifling giggles as we tried to study.
Late-night messages turned into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

You were my rock during those before-exam study-session jitters.
Your encouraging words pulling me through some of my toughest days.
That time you stayed up with me, helping me mend my will to continue.

Exploring the city streets, getting lost but finding our way back together.
All those music, all the talks about life under the glow of streetlights.
Walking that long path, pushing each other to keep going, reaching the summit together.

But life split us into different paths,
And now the echoes of our laughter seem distant,
Yet, your friendship remains etched in my heart,
Lingering nostalgia of our inseparable times has grown into a new organ in me.

- Oizys.
 

April First: NaPoWriMo: Lost in Vine's Lament

And now for our daily (and totally optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write – without consulting the book – a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you remember having liked but that you haven’t read in a long time.

In the shadow of the withering leaves of castor,
He sat with the grief of his father,
But for the city of God, he had a pit in his heart,
Indifferent to its fate, he chose to depart.

A worm creeps in slowly,
Attracted to the rot inside his heart,
Feasting on his bitterness and disdain,
As his indifference splits apart.

The loss of the sheltering vine,
And the anger of his father for his loss,
Yet, there was no sting of remorse,
But, only a distant look for the withering plant.

For in the crumbling of his indifference,
As the worm gnaws at his calloused soul,
Scavenging the possibility of making whole.
But all that seeped out was the wish to flee.

I read this book long time ago and it stayed with me. Recently, while reading a poem, it ignited the memories of the former book and that made me pen this poem to honor it. Can you guess which beloved book inspired this poetic retelling? Let your imagination wander through the verses and see if you can uncover the title hidden within the lines.

- Oizys.