blogging

When Fall Doesn’t Come – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
Here in California the chilling wind
doesn't come; autumn heat lingers

until after the Christmas lights are 
hung up. Leaves may turn shades

of golden and fall from the trees, 
but the sun continues to shine and 

you often can't wear a sweater or
hold a hot drink. You'll continue 

melting, waiting for the leaves to turn,
until you realize they already have.

Fall doesn't always come.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! I’m excited for winter, but here in California fall never really feels like anything. It just represents back to school and waiting for winter to actually come. I want to live somewhere where all four seasons actually happen 🙂 Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Smoke Over the Fence – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
Fences keep out many things, but 
smoke isn't one of them. Let it curl

in the air over the backyard walls, 
disappear into the night while the

scent lasts. The grey shapes against
the twilight could be beautiful if

we looked up and saw them.

I hope you enjoyed this super short piece! It was pretty much inspired by going in my backyard and smoke drifting over the wall from my neighbor’s house. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Missed Opportunities – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
We look at missed opportunities in the form
of forks in the road and plane tickets never
booked, but what about the ones under our
noses? 

The meals never made with the 
ingredients in the fridge, the conversations
never had even though they were acted out
so many times in one's head, the outfits
never worn that remained on vision boards
and magazine spreads. 

We continue on, missing what is beside us,
in front of us, or passing by as we walk to
work and school and everything in between.
At least acknowledge what you're missing.

I hope you enjoyed this poem! I try to take advantage of all the opportunities granted to me, and although it can be overwhelming taking on larger opportunities such as activities and jobs and such, there are so many little ones that are just fun experiences waiting to be had. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Color-Coded Candy – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
let's sit in the kitchen and organize all
the candy we've collected in the cupboards,

even if half of it's expired. we can unwrap
each chocolate bar so they'll all melt into

puddles, slightly different shades of brown.
we'll never want to eat sugar again, like

our half-baked version of Halloween when
we ate each piece and the bottoms of our

pillowcases-turned-trick-or-treating bags
were littered with the colorful wrappers,

not color-coded at all. 
let's keep it simple and make it harder on

ourselves, once more.

I hope you enjoyed this poem! It was kind of inspired by the fact that Halloween’s really not that faraway at this point. Before we know it, the holiday season will be upon us! Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

We Continue To Bleed – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
{a moment of silence, first and foremost}
remember those who have come before,
and who have been lost along the way.
remember the ruin of fires and broken
buildings, the rebuilding and the pride
of getting to stand tall once again. 
love trumps hate, and people are stronger
than you think.

I don’t want to say too much– that’s why this poem is short in the first place. Please remember to take a moment of silence in your day in memoriam of the lives lost on 9/11/2001. Thank you. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Taking Too Much – Poem by Me

Brooke3 Comments 
Are we just fooling ourselves, fooling
each other, or is this how we take

advantage? I want to know but I don't
want to ask, and that's a common theme

with you. I want to be the better person
but I don't want to do it myself-- 

does that mean you're the one taking
the high road? Am I holding even

more pieces of you hostage by asking
these questions and using precious

moments of your time? Too many questions,
and I'll only be taking more from you

if I ask them.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

P.S. I Still Think About You – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
I write you letters in my head once
a year, maybe more, but the only
ones I actually send are to wish you
a happy birthday.

You always had more friends than me,
a more vibrant life (and I was amazed)
so I'm sure my words just blend into
the background.

It's easy to remember glimpses of 
good times: hours spent trying on sparkly
outfits in shopping malls, countless 
Goldfish crackers eaten during late-night
conversations on my trundle bed, 
belting out the lyrics to Taylor Swift 
songs, just to name a few.

It's harder to remember how we became
friends, and how we aren't friends 
anymore. 

Don't worry, I won't pick up the phone 
and ask.

I hope you guys enjoyed this piece! A lovely reader challenged me to write a poem to my ex-best friend. There’s honestly no hard feelings between me and the person who inspired this poem (honestly, a couple people did), just normal growing up and drifting apart happened. It often does work out like that. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Let’s Talk: How I Got Over My Fear of Zooms

Brooke4 Comments

Hello everyone!

Today I’m going to talk about a topic that might seem kind of silly. When remote learning was first introduced somewhat clumsily in the first stages of quarantine this spring, I was terrified of participating in class on my Zoom meetings, and I didn’t like having my video on. Hours and hours of time spent on Zooms later, I’m much more comfortable with the platform and in some situations (definitely not all) I almost prefer it to meeting with people in person. Keep on reading if you want to find out what changed my mind and how I got over this silly fear.

Spoiler alert: the main thing that helped me get over this weird fear was just being on more Zooms. My writing workshop was held completely virtually on Zoom, I attended a leadership seminar also run on Zoom, my meetings for various extracurricular activities ended up being hosted on Zoom, I had to run my own individual Zoom meetings when I volunteered to tutor elementary school students, I had tons of Zoom meetings when I started my internship in July and have now led/helped lead Zoom meetings with a decent amount of people on them through that same internship, and now, of course, I spend my full school day in Zoom classes.

Originally, I felt so conscious about having Zoom classes. Would people be judging my background? Was my audio quality bad, or was there going to be a bunch of background noise from my family that would embarrass me? The idea that my voice would reverberate through everyone else’s speakers if I decided to talk freaked me out. I feel like in an in-person class, people don’t really tune in to other people’s answers unless they’re really engaged in what’s going on.

I now realize Zoom class is basically the same in this way (there’s even more opportunities to tune out), but in my head I thought that everyone would be hyperfocused on me if my face popped up on the screen and started talking. You can’t have casual side conversations with peers or teachers in a Zoom room unless you’re in breakout rooms- either everyone’s listening to you or they’re not.

Being in breakout rooms and nudging myself to participate during my writing workshop led the groundwork for being more comfortable in virtual settings later on. My goal was to participate once per day in the large group sessions during my writing workshop, but we all participated a ton in our small groups. With this experience under my belt, I couldn’t help but feel like a Zoom expert in my other meetings during the summer, and I was one of the first people to speak in my leadership seminar groups in many situations.

I’m one of those people who is super shy but around other shy people can easily make myself more outgoing/extroverted to fit that role in the group, and having previous experience with Zoom/virtual meetings in general made me more confident to lead them and participate in them as I would if I were in person. If I can do it, you can too!

I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit about my experience with this topic. Zoom is a key part of virtual learning, but it’s being used for so much more even outside of the education sphere right now, and I know it’s scary to some in the same way it was to me. Feel free to leave any feedback or your own personal experiences in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Let’s Talk: Blogging During Quarantine

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

I wanted to talk a little bit about my current blogging goals and how my blog has changed since quarantine, as well as blogging in general. I know a lot of people have started blogs and other digital projects during quarantine, and lots more people have been consuming more digital content as usual, whether that’s Netflix and YouTube videos or blog articles. If you’re interesting in hearing more on my perspective regarding blogging during quarantine, keep on reading!

First off, I’m just going to say that it’s been difficult to come up with fresh ideas to blog about during this time. I don’t want to focus too much on the actual issues at hand since everyone’s already aware of them and I don’t have any personal stories to bring to the table, but there’s also not as much activity in my life outside of the house with everything going on. I did make the switch to focusing almost exclusively on writing content, but even then, it’s been hard to find writing inspiration.

As I’ve discussed before in various posts surrounding the purpose behind this blog and my goals for its future, my content doesn’t fit neatly into one particular niche. Although you might say I’ve become exclusively a poetry blog, I still create other content focusing on education, other aspects of writing besides my own pieces, and I’m always open to requests in the comments.

I still think blogging is a great way to get your thoughts out, especially during these times where you might feel super isolated. No matter what you’re writing about, there’s something special about putting words on the page and sending them off where other people can read them. It’s even more amazing having someone connect with your work, especially when they go out of their way to tell you so.

I’ll probably revisit this topic in the near future, but hopefully I won’t have to, and better times are just around the corner. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there– wear a mask! 🙂

Brooke

Girl Melting – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
Watch her melting on the sidewalk, 
her sweat mixing with skin as she

kneels on the concrete, cooling her
hands on the grass. The ice cream

truck comes through the neighborhood,
and the man offers her a popsicle.

The red, sticky sweetness drips 
onto her clothes and stains them.

Now blood is mixing with the sweat.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! I actually haven’t had a popsicle in forever, now that I think about it… maybe next summer. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke