LJ Idol 10: Week 1: I need the struggle to feel alive

[codenamewanderlust]

A Pirate's Life for Me

I have this awful habit of jumping on sinking ships.

I end up as an eternal castaway. A diaspora of one; a nomadic lone wolf moving through life with all of my material wealth compacted into the space of a single steamer trunk that I grasp onto for dear life while trying to keep my head above water.

Marking the years by the beds/couches/corners I have slept in.

It’s a curse, I realized eventually, but the thing about this curse is I never know until it’s too late; until it’s time to plot a course through the storm.

I wear out my welcome and I mosey on down the road. Riding out on the very bridges they’d built to bring me in on, letting the fires burn infinitely in my wake.

I keep my eyes on the horizon and never look over my shoulder.

I learn I thrive under pressure and find the most peace in the days it comes down to my basic needs for survival. I keep a bug out bag and carry a water bottle wherever I go. Semper paratus*.

It’s all the same story and I live it over and over again until I am running out of money and vices.

I send out a distress signal.

I wake to 5am alarm clocks for eight hundred days; commuter busses and packed lunches. It begins to wear me down, like sea glass, dulling the senses. I’m squandering time and my own fullest potential.

I’m homesick for moments spent around campfires with guitars and complete strangers and for a time I burned through notebooks like forest fires; pouring whiskey on the ground. My heart beats a bluegrass ballad for the wind under the wheels and miles of Americana passing me by.

I cry out for mutiny.

______________________
* Latin phrase, meaning "Always ready". It is used as the official motto of some organizations, such as the US Coast Guard.

AN: This was my attempt at trying to write "flash fiction" and is exactly 300 words. (Not including the title)

Edit: Here is the link to read all of the entries and vote for your favorites: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/953518.html

Comments

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I liked this. Quite a lot. I love how you bookened your first and last sentence. The second to last paragraph is pure poetry.

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

what lovely feedback! This comment is really everything to me right now <3

Thank you for reading.

[j0ydivided.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[lilmissmagic71.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love this...

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[meridian_rose]

This one gets a vote from me :)

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you!

[marlawentmad.livejournal.com]

This is great, I have a poem published with the same title, "A Pirate's Life for Me," by my poetry group The Makeshift, but my piece took a much different journey than your entry!

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

I almost titled it "the black spot" but wanted it to feel a bit more hopeful and also to give the "narrator" some sense of personal agency and culpability in their(my) circumstances.

I like to idealize the swashbuckling fantasy of the "golden age of piracy" even though I have read a lot of the actual historical accounts so I would be interested in reading your poem and your interpretaion of the theme.

[marlawentmad.livejournal.com]

I read the poem on a podcast which developed after the creation of the poetry group I am a member of: Here is a link! http://brandonnoel85.podbean.com/?source=pb
I read "A Pirate's Life for Me" on episode 3.

Attempt? You slayed this. I'm dead AF

[ali anderson (from livejournal.com)]

My only note would be to your foot note-
This is not an attempt.
You are not trying.
You're the real raw deal.
Not just well written, but well edited.

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

Aww Ali thank you so much! I need to work on that internalized self doubt. Thanks for reading and being such a supportive friend.

Saudade...I hope everything is superfantabulous with you and the kiddo

[rayaso.livejournal.com]

You packed an awful lot of good writing into your 300 words. Well done!

[rswndrlst.livejournal.com]

thank you so much!

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

This was terrific-- and really captured the conflicts between wanting ease and connectedness (while overburdening friends's good graces) and maintaining self-sufficiency while gradually muting the soul.

I end up as an eternal castaway. A diaspora of one
Marvelous language.

This was a terrific flash-fiction piece, too.

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

So good a prose that it's poetry :) Well written!

[my-name-is-jenn.livejournal.com]

Very well written. :)