Any Sufficiently False Start is Indistinguishable from True

Bald cypress, green feathers in

my hands as I gaze upon flora

beyond my own swamp?

No, wait,

start again—

Lorca and Limón and Giovanni

and Vuong and Dickinson

and so many others in my hands?

No, wait,

start again—

The lag and glitch of

my hand on the journal

as my therapist tells me to

no, wait,

start again—

The twitch of mirage red

my hand and my husband’s hand cover

in the sands of my Notes app?

No, wait,

start again—

The 404 student zine,

hands on the phone and mic

as college kids cram toward project management?

No, wait,

start again—

The minnows who gasp for air

between toxic algal blooms and the blue featured tag

of a deleted Tumblr blog?

No, wait,

start again—

The touch I never felt from another boy’s

hands, or, well, anything, at fifteen

I’d depict as some passing storm?

No, wait,

start again—

The incantation of my dragon

plushies’ migrations in my hands, the door

empty when Mom takes too long for Dad’s papers?

No, wait,

start again—

I had a really hard time deciding whose prompt I was gonna’ tackle today, so I ended up blending two together! The refrain and final lines come from Ryan Stephen Thornton’s final jape-ril prompt, which you can find below:

For the subject matter itself, I took inspiration from Alex Dawson’s prompt to write your own poet origin story, which you can find in her post:

Thank you so much to everybody who's been following along for NaPoWriMo 2026! Feel free to share your favorite poem (of yours or somebody else's) from this month in the comments!