Sarah Gregory : My desk is a longstanding couch and there is a metaphor in there somewhere.

      Typically, a writing day for me is every day. I write at six in the morning when the sun is still waking up. When my toddler daughter is sound asleep in her room and the insanely giddy songbirds outside start their overature. I run a comb through my hair like Danny Zuko in Grease (or so I would like to think). Then I embark on the almighty coffee making process, click goes the button. Writing until my child rouses for the day is a major part of my mornings. I start up my Spotify playlist of Mozart, Vivaldi, Haydn, and a sprinkle of Korn. I not only need focus when writing, but just a pinch of anger and angst to stay motivated.

     Writing isn’t only a morning ritual for me though. I write on napkins in diners, talk text quick prose while driving to appointments, and in my journal while sitting on the forest floor while my daughter laughing, climbs the beech trees. I write in the silence that only comes around midnight, curling up on my couch with my laptop and tobacco scented candle. No one can complain about cigarettes if you have that candle, everyone loves a scapegoat. 

      My poetry sometimes comes like flash floods in the spring, when the Mississippi River rises like bile in the back of America’s throat. I hurry to jot down all the lines spilling forth before the flood waters leak through the pages. My poetry sometimes comes like muted snowdrifts in the late winter. A soft crunch of scattered words beneath my feet as I try to crumble up a snowball of a poem as adjective flurries whip around my hair just out of reach. I do my best to write, edit, strain, laugh, and post poetry at least twice a day. There is nothing in our world as beautiful as poetry. Poetry is our world, concentrated. 

The Best Time to Write

the best time to write is midnight

right when melancholy knocks on my door

and the loneliness of the day settles in my bones

waiting for the release only creativity may bring

the best time to edit is around six a.m.

right when the sun is rising with my hope

and I shake off the slithery nightmares of sleep

like a wet pit bull ridding himself of fleas

cigarette in one hand, steaming espresso in the other

I find the calm of fresh rain morning

is best to fix mistakes emotions made at night

Sarah Gregory lives in Tupelo, Mississippi with her two-year-old daughter Genevieve. She studies Marketing Management at the local college thanks to many writing scholarships. She hopes to have her first poetry book published by 2020. Sarah is made up of equal parts nicotine and caffeine with just a hint of forest’s fresh air.