Day 10

I don’t know why, but November always seems to move faster than every other month. Here we are on the 10th day of this challenge, and it feels like we just started.

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Trouble,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possible titles include: “Big Trouble,” “Double Trouble,” and “That Guy Is Trouble.” I hope you don’t have too much trouble getting started.

After Trouble


I know how it is.
Nothing is wrong

Nothing is wrong.

The sky fades to purple and to night
and still nothing is wrong

and still the blood waits

for the sound of a shuffling step
or a bump against the hallway
or the feeling of the full bodies weight
on the back of the hand there and the friend falls
slump, bled out

or the dying not yet dead
lurching on in their limited living

But nothing is wrong.

You are decades past that.

They are all dead now
and cannot trouble you now.
Until now
After trouble

this

this waiting quiet
that that cannot stop its waiting
that cannot even yet
cry itself to sleep
for fear of the sound
that might make
in the dark.