Ours poetica

"my darling turns to poetry at night"

TWs: implied car crash and amputation and mention of firearms/guns (used in metaphor).

There was a sorcery occurring. He could feel the hum of it in the thinnest parts of his palms, where veins pressed against cracked skin and beat with the rush of his blood. His knee bounced, eagerness overtaking him as he scribbled upon the blank page, steadily filling each line with hurried pen strokes that sung of heartaches and new friends. Around him, his teammates were partaking in a similar type of magic; it was just their weekend quick write, one they did every poetry practice to get the juices flowing, but there was something in the air today. Maybe it was the way the fairy lights of Kinoko's were winking as their batteries bled, maybe it was the way the dregs of their drinks lay forgotten in the bottoms of their cups, aromas wafting in the air and tangling amongst each other, or maybe it was just the prompt Puffy had picked, but whatever it was, it was brilliant.

"Pick a secret," the team captain had announced, setting up a timer on her phone, "it could be one that you've had for years, or one you just hid away this morning. Whatever it is, pick one and write from the perspective of that secret."

When he had first heard that prompt, he wanted to laugh. A persona poem from his biggest secret, as if his biggest secret wasn't the mere act of writing itself—it was meta, he'd give it that. It was meta and totally, hilariously painful, but Puffy's prompts always were; the team captain firmly believed in shoving her writers out of their comfort zone to access their true potential. Sure, sometimes it led to scrambled messes of words and jumbled thoughts, sometimes it was nothing more than venting on paper and misshapen images, but every now and then when Puffy nudged them just right, it made something beautiful. Vulnerability, she'd say, twirling a pen between her fingers as if it was a dagger and she the assassin, is the best way to start a poem. Start genuine, and the rest will follow.

'Start genuine', Tommy couldn't help but think that's what made this whole thing so hard sometimes, allowing a stranger to see the deepest parts of yourself, your true self, all through a few words on the page. Starting genuine meant doing away with the throw-away similes and figurative language that decorated his thoughts, meant cleaving away at all that excess to find the core of what he was saying, who he was—'start genuine', and stand waiting as the entire world judged you.

And yes, it was all very terrifying, so much so that sometimes the thought of going to poetry practice or sending his teammates his newest draft ate away at his chest and clogged his breath, but there was still nothing like it. The adrenaline each time he finished his first draft, the feeling of elation bubbling under his skin and exploding with each hurried breath as he smeared ink all over his hands, his face, uncaring at the aftermath of his art because this was creating. This was everything spell-binding and impossible; it was late night spent marking up third drafts with red pens and a discarded Coke can by his side; it was mumbling lines of well-loved poems to yourself in the grocery store; it was sending your friend a cento that reminded you of them; it was acidic and savory and warmth and numbing and it was magic. His magic.

(And it was addictive, that was for sure. Lord only knows how many times Ranboo had to poke him to actually take notes during class instead of trying his hand at haikus in the margins of his paper)

Start genuine, and the rest would follow. It was easy to say that his biggest secret was that his family didn't know he wrote: he could rant to Tubbo for hours about the simultaneous want to have Phil recognize his art but revulsion at the thought of the man reading his work, could draft sestina after sestina about poems tucked away once sunrise came, only to be loved at night. But was that really it? It felt too easy, too safe, and if there was one thing Tommy knew Puffy hated, it was easy poems.