Number ## in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by XXX.
Congratulations!
Your baby’s gender is
a brush fire
an inferno
burning a state park
destroying a house
causing an evacuation
exhausting the firefighters
smoldering to ash
finally extinguishes
Aren’t you so happy to know?
30 in 30 is a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (perhaps even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article on how Peru is cremating the dead instead of burying them, as is custom.
I said goodbye
to my papaw
my last living grandparent
on Zoom
and a week later watched
his funeral
livestreamed
(the irony is not lost on me)
Ten mourners permitted
lost behind masks
Our shared emotions
stolen too
In other times
before times
after times
(ojalá)
we would gather together
and hold each other
in sorry
in memory
the rituals of death
our healing
In the now times
we have only
wounds
30 in 30 is a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (maybe even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing comes from an article about the surge in kite sales in India during the pandemic.
A flutter
of paper wings
glides over
the hot summer sky
The kite carries
all of its family’s
yearning,
a life line tethered
to their balcony
Children chase
each other
Lovers tangle
their strings
Adventurers reach
higher
higher
higher
until
the kite escapes
its bounds
to explore the world
newly lost
Oh, what joy
to set your heart free
again
30 in 30 is a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (hopefully, in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing comes from an article in the LA Times on the players’ walkout/strike in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake.
The stadiums empty but for the scuffle of feet, the squeak of sneakers, the sweat of the game. Outside these doors, a world on fire, and the pressure – order – to keep it out. From the empty seats, let the fans imagine for a moment, a breath, that things are as they were, as they never will be again. Protect them from the fire.
No.
When the fire burns hotter, deadlier, against the players and their people, No. When the moment requires no respite for some until justice for all, No. When the reckoning must happen, even here, especially here, No.
What a gift to us all is this No.
30 in 30 is a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (hopefully, in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing comes from an article in the LA Times about a councilman’s efforts for a developer and payments into a PAC connected to his reelection campaign.
What do they tell themselves as the funds flow
to prop up their campaign?
Do they whisper or shout
that it’s for the best?
Compromise
for the greater good
to build a better world
for the little guy?
But the little guy can’t sleep
with the warning lights flashing in his eyes
and the rent coming due
Higher
HIGHER
The landlord eyeing his house
a commodity
a profit
Where the little guy sees
Memory
Home
Did they tell themselves they’ll make it better?
But only if they stay in office
“The other guy, he’ll burn your house down;
I’ll only sell it out from under you.”
Uncork the hole in the dam
that keeps back the flood
and promise the little guy a lifeboat
…tomorrow
Did they notice when all their good intentions
turned to dusty rhetoric?
Did they notice when they bought into the system
and its silent sins?
Did they notice when they started to say, to believe
That’s just the way things are
You gotta play the game to get anything done
But who do they play for?
Because the little guy?
He can’t afford the ticket.
30 in 30 is a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (hopefully, in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing comes from an article on the adultification of Black girls in the LA Times.
Her childhood could have looked mine
But they pressed her down with
Responsibility
Younger and younger than I’ve ever been
For herself
For her family
For her race
For the world
My own body bloomed too early
drawing attention from men
to the way it curved and took up
SPACE
No matter how small I tried to hide it
Hers too
But that attention came
before the bloom
And painted her roses a sinister red
No patch of land for her innocence
to put down roots
to thrive
CJ René 