Poetry Samples:
#vss365 challenge! Word is #purge
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) February 29, 2020
You told me you donated everything from her
Even the dress she died in
I thought of how many times I’ve dug through abandoned clothes at thrift stores
Like it was buried treasure
And wondered how many ghosts I’ve actually purchased too
My #vss365
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 8, 2021
But what if universes
Weren’t parallel
And more like a #VennDiagram
With every one of them overlapping
Here
At this moment
Where our fingers interlock
And we fall in love
In an infinite amount of ways
Our destinies converging
Like petals branching
From a primrose path
Falling in love
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 15, 2021
Is #almost like
Listening to sounds
From somewhere #beyond
And wondering if the explosions
Are from fireworks
Or bombs…
#vss365
like a #corner piece
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) February 12, 2021
in a lifetime of puzzles
you always found me#vss365 (corner) #haiku
You tuck it behind your ear like it’s nothing
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 2, 2020
But there’s #rainwater in your hair
From all the storms you conquered
🌧❤️#vss365
Nature had made her metamorphically magnificent
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 24, 2020
She was polished perfection
Treasured temptation
Light spun off her lustrous lips like lavishly lost legends
But she was a September-born #sapphire
So tough, she scratched whoever came too close#vss365
It’s such a small change#Between dull to shimmering
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 21, 2020
From grey to #silver …#vss365 #HaikuChallenge
The #village was like popcorn
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 13, 2020
People full of flavor always popping in
Exploding with new stories
They had risen to the top
While the ones who settled never bloomed
They were my fellow kernels,
Stuck to the bottom of a burnt up bag
Destined to be discarded and forgotten#vss365
We are a rhythmic riddle
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 30, 2023
Caught between the tick and tock
Of a counterweight clock
An aria in the key of anticipation
A half-mad caterpillar in the chrysalis of creation
Teetering on tomorrow’s wings
We are a lost love letter
In a stagnant state
Of #penultimate potential#vss365
I would like to paint you an everywhere
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) September 18, 2021
In bright #splats of time
With colors and claustrophobic clocks
Cascading down the canvas
Until our love hangs in the modern art section of the universe
Where others tip their head at us
Wondering
What the fuck we even mean#vss365 #splat
I know what whiskey you whisper
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) September 8, 2022
You know every song I’ve slept on
We’re not strangers to this kind of #kiss
And if love is a mystery I don’t mind knowing the ending
As long as I end up with you#vss365
#vss365 challenge!
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) March 10, 2020
I love the sound of “scintilla”
The way “ravel” rolls off the tongue
The “dalliance” of love affairs
The “progeny” of being young
But after all is said and done
And written out for us to view
My favorite #word will always be…
Forever and completely,
YOU!! ❤️
#vss365 challenge!
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) March 7, 2020
You were like a #patch
Meant to be temporary
But became a quilt#haiku
#vss365 challenge! Word is #deathly
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) February 28, 2020
He can’t so much as move
Without people clutching their bucket lists
As they escape on the next train
To wherever he’s not going
I learned that cold summer
Serving drinks down at Percy’s
That all Hades really ever wanted
Was a friend
To #escape is not to evade
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 15, 2023
But to evolve
Not to exit
But to enter
A realm where we realize
There are more ways to wander
Than the world would have us believe…#vss365
The sky is not a ceiling
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 23, 2023
But rather a launching point
Toward reaching
A sweet stampede of stars…#vss365 #boundless
She tends tulips under tragic tombstones
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 1, 2023
Humming her heartache, her grief garden grown
As her hands work the soil, her wisdom unfolds:
“Remember, my darling, some beauty blooms best in the #bittersweet cold.”#vss365
Your heart is a house
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) October 8, 2022
With many halls
And I am the #spider
Spinning structures
From the corners where you think no one cares#vss365
Jealousy is a #dark lake
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) September 15, 2022
filled with small fish
That grow to be piranhas
And their little teeth
Are sharper than I am
They swim circles around me
In that dark lake
That I trip into
Too tripped up by the trips down memory lane
To notice
I die drowning in my own self-doing#vss365
But we were #lambent lovers
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) September 12, 2022
Burned too many times
By the warmth of our whispers
Eyes stung sightless
From staring at such soft light
Candle wick cares
Broken by the belief
Our glares could ever guide#vss365
Wires I did not know were holding us together
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) August 4, 2022
Housing orchestras and oceans
Along a small #circuit
Your love is a cycle
I find I will forever remain in its loop
#vss365
No one talks about after the finish line
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 20, 2022
The heartache of harshness you’ll hear in your ear
A buzz turned hangover
An overhang slowly sinking
Maybe when moments slip into memories
Time doesn’t fly
Time is #flies
Trying to escape glass doors
Not knowing they’ll die there#vss365
My walking shoes are #weary and worn
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) February 4, 2022
My Romeo heart, a little #lovelorn
But you’re the type of journey worth the roam
Where in the end our drifting days end home
#vss365
I lost the address to the universe
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 4, 2022
So swept up in such a #solar storm
Saw a scratch of sentences
Toward the #tranquil tip of time
Telling me
That all we need
To reach the heavens
Is to reach
Inside our soul
We are synonyms for sunlight
Sundressed up with no place to glow#vss365
But who said the meaning of #infinity
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 2, 2022
Was just a number we couldn’t reach
We are like flies against the smooth glass of a situation
Constantly believing the way out
Is only what we see
Life isn’t about
What a definition is or isn’t
But rather
What infinity could be…#vss365
I will take
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) December 30, 2021
Your puffy paint plaque
Any day
Over some puffed-up prize
Because we don’t need
Passive-aggressive symphonies
To rush any speeches off our tongue
At some awards show
Where the trophy might as well be a paper weight
Anchoring down
My love letter
To you#vss365 #reward
A sand dollar for your thoughts
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) September 11, 2021
He asks
As we build octopus tentacles made of sand and shells
I pause
How is the smell of your skin stronger than the seaweed and salt along this #shore?
How do you abbreviate the ocean!
When
Did we fall out of friendship
Into so much more?#vss365
You are the symmetry to my strangeness
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) August 13, 2021
My broken record balance
My brain finally functioning
When I devour my coffee
And your kisses
One
Two
Past infinity
Always plus one
Through life
We are each other’s
Eternal kaleidoscopes
Full of aspects
I will never want to #mend#vss365
though he is broken
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) August 4, 2021
that also means he’s open
to love rare and deep#vss365 ( #sunder ) #haikuchallenge ( rare )
Face the world
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 29, 2021
Like it’s not a #coincidence
You’re in it#vss365
Like a #permission slip
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 26, 2021
I will forget to beg for your approval
As I learn to forge
As completely as I can
Ahead#vss365
Love is a #danger
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 26, 2021
If you’re not falling
You’re not doing it right#vss365
There was a charm and frustration to her simplicity
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 24, 2021
She could dine at the top of the Eiffel Tower
And still love the free bread and #butter on the table
Better than the meal itself #vss365
Being #afraid of trying
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 20, 2021
Was the irrational illusion
Of stabbing a mirror
And expecting my reflection to bleed#vss365
You buzz about the room
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 20, 2020
Busy as a #bee
Gathering smiles like pollen
It only takes a whiff of you
To pull us back into those summer memories
Your perfumed adventures
Alive again in just the smell of a moment
Bringing us the scent of every flower you have flown to 🌸 #vss365 🐝
sometimes we must #jump
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 25, 2021
not knowing what to land on
to call it flying
#HaikuChallenge (what) #vss365 (jump)
We couldn’t write prescriptions
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) July 7, 2021
For problems we created
So we’d sit
Frozen yogurting fears away
In little #therapy sessions
Where we’d diagnose all the psychopaths that broke our fragile hearts
Too young to realize
All we wanted was the intensive care of each other’s arms#vss365
Sometimes we #crash
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 26, 2021
And our hearts get stronger
Rather than break#vss365
They delayed each other like a deadline
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 16, 2021
Their time tightening like a #chain
They laughed and loved between #lazy laters
Tangled temperaments
And approaching adrenaline
Paperweighting each other to such stacks of promises
That were far too heavy to hold#vss365
Then she realized
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 1, 2021
Being #happy wasn’t a state of mind
Or a daily choice
It was a game
A risk rigged against her
A bet she had to gamble away
Only to earn back
Impossibly
Because it seemed
The only real way to gain happiness
Was to lose it in someone else entirely…
#vss365
Nature had made her metamorphically magnificent
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) May 24, 2020
She was polished perfection
Treasured temptation
Light spun off her lustrous lips like lavishly lost legends
But she was a September-born #sapphire
So tough, she scratched whoever came too close#vss365
You never know whose rough day
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) April 24, 2020
Is being taken out on you
Everyone wears their #damage differently#vss365
How we laughed, how we sorrowed
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) April 18, 2020
Synched like jazz tunes played anew
Your heart, something I borrowed
Your mind, what I always knew
You’re the type of pain that’s healing
Like pale dusk skies in changing hue
You are both a color and feeling
You are my ideal shade of #blue#vss365
She runs #rings around them
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) April 24, 2021
Not to show off
But to evade their attacks#vss365
sleepy sidewalk steps
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) January 4, 2021
taxis passing like vultures
that’s when I’m alive#haikuchallenge {sleep) #vss365 #vulture
Sometimes the water gets so hot
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) March 25, 2021
All the mirrors cloud you away
I try to trace squeaky little hearts
Across the #fog of the mirror
Glimpsing you for a moment
To only have you fade away
#vss365
I talked with Time
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) April 26, 2020
I wagered with War
Slammed down my salary
As the #heavyweight category was called
But as the match of Loss against Fear began
I realized my money should‘ve been on another
Who called it all off in a heartbeat
I had forgotten the referee’s name was Love#vss365
I’ll tell you a secret
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) November 26, 2020
Humpty Dumpty meant to fall
To be a better king
If you’re not broken, you’re not open
To new ideas
I think he knew
We often let life break us
To make us
We are but broken bits of beauty
Made whole in the #mosaic of challenges that can truly shape us#vss365
she didn’t just #sing
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) October 24, 2020
she brought heaven down to earth
in mere melody #vss365 (sing) #haikuchallenge (down) #haiku
My sister was a doctor long before she went to med school. I was five when she slapped happy face stickers across her old prescription cases, filling them to the brim with skittles.
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) October 3, 2020
“They’re chill pills,” she told me and suddenly I could #relax on the first day of school#vss365
“I‘m just oatmeal,” she said. “No one accepts me plain
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) June 26, 2020
I drown myself in milk#Slather my soul in sugar
Yet I’m always upstaged by the fancy frittatas & extravagant omelettes on the breakfast menu of life!”
“I get oatmeal,” he said, shrugging
“As a side!” she hissed back#vss365
The #guitar exhaled
— Mandy D. Chew (@mandydchew) April 29, 2020
My reflex was to breathe back
We are both heavy with sounds
Alive with our humming
Reverberating across the universe#vss365 #ilovemyguitar #mmmmmguitar pic.twitter.com/nqSv9Pi4zC