I’m very happy to have a poem selected for inclusion in Rattle mag’s special issue on mental illness. “Long Car Line Prayer” was written just prior to my having a debilitating panic attack, brought on by many things I did not know were about to turn my life upside down. I think you can sense some of the anxiety I was feeling in the poem. I still feel this way sometimes, but now I am able to stand the symphony of words in my head without assigning any kind of judgement to them. They are just thoughts- not positive, not negative, not good, not bad, not weird. Just words I am thinking.
lovely lemon birthday cake
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I made this cake for my son’s 15 birthday after he requested a lemon cake. Saved a bunch of time by buying a jar of lemon curd at Publix, too. It was good and reallllly on the sweet side.
Do you have a memory of a birthday cake from your past?
I remember a coveted ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins in the shape of a train. And a fun fifth grade birthday party with a homemade yellow sheet cake from mom that my friends and I got to decorate ourselves, thanks to food coloring and different frostings.
I like how a celebratory cake shows up in poet Natalia Diaz’ poem No More Cake Here. The narrative turn she takes at the end is especially compelling. She is remembering a cake from a celebration (we can call it that) that possibly never happened.
Diaz holds the memory of her brother in two hands, with both a firm and a loose grasp. There lies love and anger side-by-side, at once asleep and blowing up balloons. Our families will celebrate and mourn, many times together. We hold each other loosely when we have to.
tiny little pricks
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it feels very good to contribute to this public art project by diana weymar
