My Top Eight: My Favorite Snippets from #30Layers30Days

First, shouts to my girl GG (@ggreneewrites) for the  #30Layers30Days writing challenge. This year’s challenge really reawakened my writing bug, and I’m ever grateful for the push. This go ‘round, I journaled, I blogged, I scribbled during conference calls, dictated notes to Siri while driving, and for the most time this year, I woke up with writing on my brain. I already blogged Day 4: What She Saw and Day 9: Faith and Forever, and expanded on Day 16: Describe Him with “I Should Have Been Loved By Now” Aside from those, here are my fave eight outcomes of the 30 Layers writing challenge.

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6 | A Cluttered Mind

Axiom &
Clandestine &
Propitiation &
Love.
I put all the words I’m unsure of
into a single note on my phone
to keep my mind clear
of the things it can’t readily process.

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16 | Describe Him

I lie about him all the time. He’s tall and demanding and in love with my words. I know the scar on his inner thigh where he was blessed by a bullet, but I have no idea what his skin feels like in the summertime. Most of him is more than myth, I just fabricated the part that stayed. I stretched the truth across the months pretending he held me in July, when he really quit calling me in May.

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19 | Too little, too late

Maybe it’s this: the fact that I was made for so much more and, up until today, refused to do anything about it. I can always do too little, but I can never be too late.

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22 | Pillow Talk

I write birthday cards in my head. I lay in my bed, mentally drafting beautiful “Dear You’s” to those who found home in my heart, months before their special day. I mutter myself to sleep every night, wrapped in the love I have for another human.

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24 | Before I Wake

And If I scream before I wake, just let me come gently from my dream. For my worst nightmare is tucked under tufts of dreams and only comes out when I’m comfortable.
So if I swing before I wake, place your hand on my hipbone and tell me you’re here. If I scream, if I swing, if I kick you before I wake, don’t worry that’s just me letting my guard down with you.

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28 | A Magical Morning

I had slept in days.
I put myself under for days at a time to avoid thoughts of you.
Until one day I rose. My grits didn’t taste like a bitter, broken heart. My tongue didn’t yearn to curse you. I didn’t search Facebook for your name –or hers.
And my mind felt like mine again.

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29 | Secret strength

There’s something alluring about my kind and our brand of self-destruction.
Like rose petals kindled by a celebrating flame, people stare at our wreckage and say:
That’s pain.
That’s beauty.
That’s art.

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30 | How to love her

My greatest fear is that you’ll lay me on the counter and call me broken. That you’ll demand a refund for the your, trust, friendship, intimacy, and every other effort you spent on me.

Don’t.