How to Write Like You Mean It

I'm suppossed to write a poem now. That's my self-assigned assignment. This poem is to help me prep for the next round of the "Tweet Me a Story" competition on NYCmidnight.com (a great site for creative people wanting to write competitively.) I've made it through three rounds, now I'm a finalist. Yippy!

Before I write my poem, here is the story that made it to the final round. (The story had to be less than 140 characters including spaces and punctuation and contestants were placed into groups and each one given a word that must be used. I had to use the word flavor.)

Shawna drives me home from the beach. We are blonde with sun and coated in a fine, white powder. I lick my arm tasting the salty flavor.

So, that's it.

I was allowed to submit up to three stories. Here are the other two:

1. Two black figures on the road. One a cat, the other a crow. Crow jerks; a broken wing. Cat grins; envisioning the flavor of blackbird pie.

2. I kneel into the Mediterranean, watching as ships fall into Africa. Now the flavor of red cumin pervades and prayers sink into a grey sea.

I'm not sure why they picked the "Shawna" story over the others, but would be interested to know your thoughts, dear reader.

Now what I really want you to know is that each story is based on something that really happened. I did see a black cat and crow in the road coming home from the gym and the crow really did have this broken wing and the cat was skinny, it followed the crow into the middle of the road.

The one about ships and Africa is based on a poem I wrote when I was in Spain. Poetry is very easy to write in Spain. Or Italy. Or on airplanes. It's not so as easy to write at home, I don't know why.

The Shawna story is just what happened. We went to the beach, she was driving, I noticed I was covered in salt; took a taste. Then, of course I was so tickled that I tasted like the ocean I kept doing it. The real part of the story is that Shawna made me go into the ocean for the first time in, like, 15 years. We were out there wading around and she just keeps swimming out father and farther and I didn't want to follow her and she was confused until finally I told her. This is all very strange becuase we live in San Diego. What normal woman in her 30's who has always lived near the beach doesn't go in?

That's a story for another post. It's time for the poem...here goes...

tiny flies float

over fruit in a bowl

the sun creeping

through the dirty window screen

flies are the thoughts

of week-old pears