Coffee Clutch

     Public Domain Image

The business man at 

the table behind me

tries, through his phone,

to logic someone 

into not to cutting her hair.

At first I cannot tell 

if it is a daughter or a lover,

but it becomes evident

as he pleads for her 

to forget boys,

go back to school.

He offers advice, favors, sugary bribes.

Then, in a worried-father voice

he says he loves her.

But I cannot hear 

if she loves him back.

This is based loosely on a converstaion I shamelessly eavesdropped on today at the coffee shop, and it's for PAD and NaPoWriMo.

We Cling to the Familiar

     Image: People in Trees by Mikola Gnisyuk vis Baibakov Art Projects

We cling to the familiar,

to what we know,

long after we know

it no longer serves us,

no longer is true.

We cling to the familiar,

because we have done this

for so long,

to pry our fingers away is painful.

Our hands are adhered,

seared to the surface

of the obsolete.

And in tearing them away

we leave

raw, bloody layers

of ourselves 
behind.

We cling to the familiar,

because we do not know

what else to cling to,

and the thought

of empty hands,

of free falling,

with nothing to hold on to

terrifies us.

We cling to the familiar,

because we know it,

because imagining something else,

something new,

is hard,

and we are lazy.

We resist when we can simply cling

to the familiar.

So we do.

We cling to the familiar

long after

it has become
absurd.

This is for the November PAD (Poem a Day).  The image is a prompt from Robert Brewer at Writers Digest.  Click on the link and check it out.