Book Poems Inspired by Song Lyrics

Book Burning (*“Confession” by Florida Georgia Line)

Inky black words mist into smoke

Tendrils reach towards the sky like a hand grasping for purchase

Fire crackles, ravenous, insatiable, burning and yearning

Gobbling warped parchment overlaid with scribbled stories

It is not enough.

Houses burn, cities blaze but stories cannot be incinerated

Embers burn persistently like memories that won’t let go*

Words trapped in a binding are merely set free

Told and retold in perpetuity, a verbal metamorphosis

Independent of material trappings

A book cannot be burned

Portrait of a Stumped Author(*“Migraine” by Twenty-One Pilots)

I do not have writer's block my writer just hates the clock*

A novel that does not exist has a deadline that does

A girl hunched over a desk, nibbling a pencil like a beaver

Surrounded by a towering mountain of crumpled pages

Her furrowed brow tells signals the departure of every half-formed sentence that was not good enough.

Blankly staring at a blank sheet of paper

The only sound is the audible ticking of a clock

Tick tock to the same rhythm as the tell-tale heart

Her eyes widen in fear as the hour hand slides into its new position

Tick tock. Feverish denial.

Artwork done by my incredibly talented cousin, Carissa! Instagram: @witch.hazels