From the WOW Writes Writing Group - MAY
At the MAY monthly writing group,
we asked people to explore the concept of synethesia.
Synesthesia: The production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
Susan, Lisa, Vicki, and Franny answered:
Seesaw – Susan Levin
The applesauce day is red and orange as they sit noisily on the crusty seesaw.
He looks soft and maybe cold.
The long air between them, shapeless and shaped tingles the skin of her face.
They sing a yellow song that taste like happiness. He gives her a gingerly smile and looks away like a prisoner with his parole officer.
She can feel his deodorant, soak into his smooth T-shirt.
She is sweating, too, yellow, and opaque.
Memories come sliding into them as they go up and down, up and down.
He looks trapped and starts to disappear.
Mustn’t share joy with the bright green enemy.
She softens to a cool blue to bring him back but too late. She feels him gone, even as they balance their bodies.
Her sour confusion wraps itself around her like a too tight turban.
He bumps her off the iron seat and as she hits the ground the pain is red and then purple.
It’s all so familiar.
She runs her hands in the sand of the playground.
More memories, buried.
Remember - By Lisa Smith
As I tried to remember
A day of yesterday
I am recalled by a
Time I tried to get lost
You see I wonder if I
Would become lost
Because of my GPS
Inside of me.
But I was bored and
Needed something fun
To do.
As I walked home, I
Took a different route,
And another, why
You see I was curious,
curious about the end
Results one must know.
In the end,
I was not surprised
But as I saw a landscape
that I knew.
I attempted to go to another
Way, but my GPS once again
Won, as I saw my home and the
White gate smiling at me
And to my dismay I realize
That I can't get lost one must know.
Sound Mind – Franny French
No one ever knows what I mean when I say something tastes round-y. I wish they could be me
for a moment to get that mouthfeel I’m always struggling to explain—that roundness of flavor
that began in childhood, looking at my mother’s coat flung over the railing and being able to
taste its big plastic buttons, my mouth watering at the hinges of my jaw. That I know of, the
scent of purple is only shared between one other person and me. She said it recently about
lilacs in her yard. I was so relieved. I don’t hear music in colors but might if I could play an
instrument. Sometimes in the interstitial points between waking and dreaming, my mind makes
the least sense, yet I get it: The universe lies in those drops of in-between time, like moments
raining softly, the sort of dripping rain that keeps a beat in the dirt and raises the scent of the
earth. It’s similar to the river’s breath, which sits on my tastebuds like kind, contemplative
people dangling their legs off a dock, taking a break to stare out at nothing. When I wake from
sleep, always my first feeling is nostalgia for what is draining away in the curling, evaporating
tints of where I’ve been. Life is OK, though each morning, I am born anew and not quite
prepared to be where I am—in another day of trying to explain the sound of being.
The Color of Remember – Vicki Sanches
Green growth green
Grass green
Shoots with potential
Stems that reach for the sky
Green canopy, lying on the cool grass
Looking up at love