https://ladonnawitmer.com/words daily 0.75 2021-04-30 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/word-salad-newsletter monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/poetry-from-quarantine monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1585347531470-QNHRYFV0D3XMM1J2GP9G/IMG_1940.jpg Words - Poetry from Quarantine - Distanced Two backyards over an old woman coughs. Fingers strung with weeds, I flinch at the sound and begin my calculations. It was a dry cough, I’m certain, but the yards are wide and fenced high and there is no wind. I judge the distance safe and return to the dirt. I pinch intruders low and hard the way my mother taught me yanking them by the root so they claim no purchase here where hydrangeas straggle among coastal succulents and perennially fail to thrive. I cannot think of my mother, 2,030 miles from now, feeding her hens and fading daily, into the farm. I cannot think of my father, who will not believe his 77 years make him vulnerable. What have they touched in the last seven days, where have they traveled and what have they borne home to take root? I cannot make my mind mechanical. I pinch at the roots and pull. -LaDonna Witmer https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/just-write-it monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1583178089287-B7QS24QD8H40P5ZXI3CU/Screen+Shot+2020-03-02+at+11.16.23+AM.png Words - Just Write It https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/permission-to-speak monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/goddess-of-stones monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564179327271-BQ2OTSODE7FLZEK94ALE/07-27-19_goddess.JPG Words - The Goddess of Stones Bad-ass bitch. https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/back-on-the-horse monthly 0.5 2021-04-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564177788636-S94A31UADG3B6VMFR990/p_g11agjabarv0104.jpg Words - Back on the Horse In this case, the horse’s name is “Blog.” https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/tag/voice monthly 0.5 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/tag/writing monthly 0.5 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/tag/permission monthly 0.5 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/tag/submission monthly 0.5 https://ladonnawitmer.com/words/tag/silence monthly 0.5 https://ladonnawitmer.com/reverberation daily 0.75 2019-07-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564003814835-R00J3SGK7IE4JVRYUNR9/IMG-2095.JPG About 1 - Reverberation with a word you granted me angel wings with another you tore them away and i believed i could fly or not by the madness of your mouth you said it light you laughed and left never thinking back while they invaded me your words tattooed across my bones diminished me and i am vanquished now with a word you crowned me nearly perfect with another you bloodied my soul and i swore i could be or not by the trippings of your tongue you spoke it soft you shrugged and slept never waking up now they’ve infected me your words brooding within my cells erased me and i am nothing now incessantly i hear them pressing playback through my head like an endless screaming monologue stuck on your blistering groove now i can speak no other words than these they’re yours… i’m not good enough i’m never good enough and i’ll never get it right can’t i try a little harder can’t i get myself toegether, stretch to this measuring stick and i can’t let you down now i always yank you down why even try? i’m so stupid …and i am hopeless now i am broken now i am nothing now am i nothing? 11.96 | Shedding the Angel Skin https://ladonnawitmer.com/bible daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564165579504-LRLCE1GEIJDFTOBMWF7V/schoolpix.jpg Bible - For the Bible Tells Me So On a hill just off Lincoln Highway sits the white church where my parents married and I went to Sunday School with Nellie, my doll. I covered mimeographs of miracles in primary-colored snarls and sang all the jingles of Jesus and his love for children. Little ones to him belong they are weak but He is strong. On Sunday nights I slept in Winnie the Pooh pjs and my dreams were full of fire the kind that chars and burns forever and there is no deliverance not even maggots can escape the inferno that feeds on souls. I bought fire insurance when I was 4. On my knees beside my bed I put some Jesus in my heart. It was the only way, they said to find salvation. I made periodic payments for the next 20 years as if enough devotion would quench the doubt and make me finally fireproof. 04.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/dark-arts daily 0.75 2019-07-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564007024285-XQ10UBGGQBYPTF0YZDV4/IMG_6566.jpg Dark Arts - The Dark Arts They warned me this would happen when they swore us off playing cards. You think it’s all Hearts and War till the Dark Lord shows up and steals your soul. Yet here I am on a Thursday at 3, paying a millennial witch to consult the minor arcana. I have marshaled every scrap of intention and cast my dice for the goddess of stones. My affinities lie with soft-eyed pagans with bleeding heart queens and prophets of knives. If I’m going down, I’m going down reeking of blue sage and mugwort a broom in my fist and a feather in my teeth. 02.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/witch daily 0.75 2019-07-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564006630124-QCS7UP4IJG6YY0FNGIHJ/Screen+Shot+2019-07-24+at+3.11.55+PM.jpg Witch - Upon Being Called a Witch at Age 15 When I tell the story it sounds like a joke? “Are you a witch?” Classmates twittered as he jabbed a bratwurst finger and I burned red from the tits up. “I said. Are. You. A. Witch.” Whatever I’d have said wouldn’t have mattered. Minds were made up before John was a Baptist. “The BIBLE says rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” I was such a good girl long skirts locked knees but a treachery of questions. And weaker sexes than mine have burned for less. “First Samuel Fifteen Twenty-Three” That day wasn’t the one that broke me but it left a crack—that’s how the magic gets in. “I sense a spirit of rebellion in you” Patriarchs demand submission. If you cannot bend you must break or begone. I left slowly, heart first. Years later my feet caught up. “so you must be a witch.” 01.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/stumbling-block daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564165001719-VE55XEL61839NI3OU49Y/p_g11agjabarv0044.jpg Stumbling Block - Stumbling Block At the 4-H Fair in Amboy my mother told me my shorts were too short. They had never been too short before, but she saw a man watching me as I heedlessly circled the rides on the midway. Tan colt legs, knees bound in band-aids, blue cotton candy stuck to my cheek. On my way to the goat barn she stopped me and said Did you see that man? She seemed angry and a worm of unease uncurled in my belly. That was the first time I understood the male gaze came with teeth. Four Julys later I mowed the lawn in a rainbow swimsuit with leopard spots. When my father got home he seemed angry. I cut the motor and watched his arms windmill then went inside and put on pants. When leggings came in fashion I learned to layer them beneath baggy jeans wriggling free of denim only after parking my Chevette far from home. You don’t know my father said what goes through a man’s mind when he sees you wear things like that. It was my responsibility to remain invisible to let that gaze slide safely by. When all I really wanted was to be stylish fix my tan lines eat cotton candy. 06.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/enlightenment daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564166931041-PPLVIZJY5L6VTAT1N83H/IMG_6492.jpg Enlightenment - Enlightenment In the deep darkness this little light casts shadows bigger than the possibility of death. Sometimes the gloom is best left undisturbed. Illumination only increases the magnitude of nightmares. This is why we lie to children. We say you can be anything you want to be. But we know the actual possibilities are so much less than infinite. In the dark before dawn the little ones build delicious desperate dreams, extravagant gossamer schemes held together by hope and whole milk. There is always room for beautiful delusions when you cannot see how fast the walls are closing in. We break so easily in love and darkness. You spend 10 years trying to kill yourself only to realize in the end that what you really want is to live. The little light winks on somewhere in the deep and by its glow you finally see just how far you have to go. 12.07 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/driving-lessons daily 0.75 2019-07-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564027371601-THN59UNHFYMY0WT2K57F/IMG_8023.jpg Driving Lessons - Driving Lessons First, adjust your mirrors. Scoot up your seat. Buckle your belt. Always use your blinker. Nothing is more annoying than a sudden left turn. Put your right foot on the gas and also the brakes. Keep one foot on the floor unless you’re driving stick. Hover, don’t jam. Pump, don’t slam. You want to be smooooth. Park between the lines. Beneath a light. Never stop next to a windowless van. Roll up your windows. Lock your doors. Don’t put your keys away spread your fingers and thread them with points. It’s even better than brass knuckles. Check the back seat. Look over your shoulder. Ask the police man for his identification. Accelarate away from the stop sign calmly. You don’t want them to know you’re scared. If they follow, drive to a well-lit area. Memorize their license plate. Dial 911. Do it hands-free. Sometimes people will tap the bumper and pretend it’s an accident. Don’t get out of the car. Don’t open the door. You can always apologize later. If it’s wet out, the roads will be slippery. Brake slowly. Give yourself extra time. When you drive past the boys at the corner and they baby baby baby show us your titties don’t give them the finger. They might know where you live. Just keep your eyes on the road. 07.19 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/game daily 0.75 2019-07-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564098681697-BEEPZVIKISL84YIFPQ4J/prettygoodgirl8.jpg Game - How to Play the Game Tell me what you want to hear. Name the words and I will release them to you one by one. I hold them hostage only by accident but the oversight proves fortuitous on occasions like this when the balance of power shifts suddenly into my lap. I watch you muddy your eyes and plead for their lives as if I hold them up against the killing wall gun barrel pressed to their cursive heads. Negotiations commence. I could tell you right now that I l-o-v-e you or pierce the heart of the matter with a bullet right through the o. 04.08 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/bloodlust daily 0.75 2019-07-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564098920539-7QVXTGR5F91CRIOXX539/img047.jpg Bloodlust - Bloodlust I’m not asking you to fall on a sword to prove your affection but once in awhile a little jealousy wouldn’t hurt just enough green to indicate your heart’s really in this and keeps is what you’re playing for. So I’m not asking you to fall on a sword but once in awhile a knife or small dagger would be enough for you to press me to your lips and stop the bleeding. 04.08 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/5th-floor daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564099798212-P2ZIUERHWT0Y028DZ9OM/IMG_6589.jpg 5th Floor - 5th Floor 2nd Door I see you put on your strength as you walk down the hall you pull on your armor gauntlet and all. We wait for you at the nurses’ station clutching brown bags of clean underwear and purple eyeshadow just enough to get you through another week. You look so calm and so together in your thorazine sweater handing out hugs and smiles left and right thick and fast. We have no time to get suspicious. You throw up a lipgloss smoke screen and lay down machine gun chatter. It’s sleight of hand. It’s marines on command. And we are taken by surprise we are all mesmerized. Because you seem just fine you seem yourself. In fact, you’re the very picture of rehabilitated health. So we ask all the wrong questions and you give all the right answers. This is what everyone wants anyway. Polite conversation. Diversionary tactics. Pretty stories with witty punchlines. Visiting hours are over at four o’clock and then the doors lock. So we all fall in line we laugh with the track. You’ve captured your audience occupied your territory you’ve palmed everyone except for me. Yes darling, I can see you. Oh I can see right through you. But you needn’t worry don’t hold your breath. I didn’t bring any horses and I will not call the cavalry. There are no medics tucked away in my coat pockets. I’m not here to rescue you. So you can lay down your arms. You can stop the charade. Let’s just be two girls together on a Sunday afternoon. Just two dark girls together that’s all I’ll ever ask of you. 01.05 | The Secrets of Falling https://ladonnawitmer.com/home daily 1.0 2021-11-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563852191869-N18ATFQ5BB88R2Z8FK0G/IMG-2087.JPG Home The Secrets of Falling | hope is a knife edge https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563852230921-0296BKCW7UBSARFCIFB0/IMG-2082.JPG Home New Hymns | witches, bitches https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563852122944-T6XV3GLRM1CG83SLTVC7/IMG-2079.JPG Home Shedding the Angel Skin | such goth drama https://ladonnawitmer.com/precautions daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564167066507-5R1TZSU6FHL19A31YZLF/IMG_8619.jpg Precautions - Precautions I crave fortresses. High stone walls cold deep moats and perimeters stalked by mastiffs. I seek sanctuary in earthquake kits emergency flares and fire retardant safety blankets. I take confidence in escape hatches and lookout towers fallout shelters and exit rows. I make shopping lists for burglar alarms, spice casseroles with motion sensors. I knit and purl with taser guns. I want to sleep every night in a panic room clad in maximum security pajamas, one titanium alloy bodyguard hiding in the closet, another beneath the bed. I require invincible Swiss bank accounts, infallible evacuation procedures and infinite Plan B’s. There must always be another way out. I trust no-one now not even God not even you. 11.08 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/backstory daily 0.75 2019-07-22 https://ladonnawitmer.com/cinepoems daily 0.75 2019-07-23 https://ladonnawitmer.com/first-grade daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564166105247-QW55VEF0H4XE1I6L1CR5/Screen+Shot+2019-07-24+at+3.11.46+PM.jpg First Grade - In First Grade I was afraid my peanut butter sandwich wouldn’t have the proper jelly ratio. I worried that worms would drown in puddles, that Janelle would call me Lasagna, that the spelling test would have too many ck words. I was anxious, vaguely, about Cold War communists. Beside my bed a shoebox of prized possessions (cobalt beads, a rooster tailfeather, my doll Nellie’s winter cloak) sat within reach in the night in case the Russians came and we had to run for it. I believed in witches, especially the one hunkered beneath my bed. After flicking the switch at nine I’d fling myself toward the mattress from three feet out, toes safely tucked up. The things that terrify first graders now are real live men with Second Amendment guns hunting school corridors for anything bright and beating behind a classroom door. 04.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/ink daily 0.75 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564099522725-VNFOT73UWFWJR6W1HF2H/IMG_6419.jpg Ink - Ink Forever doesn’t last as long as it used to. Now we have lawyers and lasers to dispense with such annoyances as longevity and love. But this ink is permanent. This stain is eternal. I bear on my body all the color of my hope all the evidence of my fear. I will write you on my arms and remember. I will keep you within my skin until together we wither and fade. 04.08 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/crash-protocol daily 0.75 2019-07-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564004867413-69T3PGLE7G6IGBS1ZQLL/IMG-2099.JPG Copy of Burn List - Crash Protocol When she finally goes down she goes down hard. The fall is long and complicated. I put my head between my knees and wait for the mask to drop. (In case of water landings your heart can be used as a flotation device.) She sends up distress signals as she goes just in case someone, anyone is looking for a crash site. Out the left side of the aircraft you can see the mess she made (Tell the children to close their eyes.) and on the right all that remains of me. 05.06 | The Secrets of Falling https://ladonnawitmer.com/burn-list daily 0.75 2019-07-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564168310204-2MFTNDPJM3TK30XW1XQ4/IMG-2096.JPG Burn List - Burn List Inside the heart of every teenage girl burns a flame that never goes out. But virgin brains are vigilantly branded. Better to marry than to burn. So I kept my lily hands off the handsome Mormon who took me to the carnival in a cobalt sports car. And with the blue-eyed blonde from Prophetstown I limited the penetration to stares. There was the vampire I snogged on the dance floor, and the journalist I ardently groped in the dark. But any time I came close, guilt and fear doused the spark. How far is too far? Preachers are ever eager to advise. The Baptist missionary repented of impure thoughts inflicted by holding my hand. While the Catholic ginger bared himself in a field, watching angels be damned. But it was the guitarist who made me mix tapes and in the cheap white sheets of college town motels taught me the sweetness of fire. Once lit up, I burned all the way down. 02.19 | New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/tempest daily 0.75 2019-07-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564005462809-8M82DEIZEZOFNCGK2E3T/IMG_0115.jpg Tempest - Tempest There is nothing civilized about love. Not the way she does it. A living thing of hoof and horn. Of dervish whirl and lunar howl. She abides in the eye of a season of storms where there can be no allowance for abnegation—ask her to deny herself and you ask the moon to abandon the sky and orbit instead around your shoelace. Her love is unfit for polite company. Prone to violence, subject to squalls. She goes in for a kiss and takes out your eyes. Society will not stand for such barbarity, will demand a dress code and Corinthians which is, of course, a language she has not learned to speak. But then again, she will never lie or vamp or hide behind starched and lacquered protocol. What you see is what she feels. unrefined. unrestrained. undiluted. She stomps feet, she seizes hearts in sticky-fisted strangleholds then guards her stash like a dragon’s hoard roaring MINE and MORE. The best strategy for survival is to Get To Her First. Hunt hard and fast, chase her down softly like a wild winged thing. Do not try to tame her. Gather the Tempest in your arms and hold her close while she rages for in her wake follows the purest brilliance the most dazzling sunlight, the likes of which exist only in dreamscapes and Photoshop. In all your days you will never again see a love so true. 07.14 | unpublished https://ladonnawitmer.com/books daily 0.75 2019-07-24 https://ladonnawitmer.com/books/p/hymns monthly 0.5 2025-11-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170484943-KSCYDLX3KZFE2WD1GJ2L/IMG-2074.JPG Books - New Hymns https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170514340-7V6QY1XV52YP6Z9182D6/IMG-2076.JPG Books - New Hymns https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563937883956-EHO00T9W2W6JSAVZGDKH/IMG-2083.JPG Books - New Hymns https://ladonnawitmer.com/books/p/secrets monthly 0.5 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563937033861-9G44NQP96XMKASUBKNX4/IMG-2087.JPG Books - The Secrets of Falling https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563937866185-LSFO6T5DGQSHY4ZDTT49/IMG-2086.JPG Books - The Secrets of Falling https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170333162-GWHDXCGX37GYFH9WN7X5/IMG-2120.JPG Books - The Secrets of Falling https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170334351-UEDYL74XMVN621LM567R/duck+%281%29.jpg Books - The Secrets of Falling https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170339070-NDQH379AYL67BPN9U2R0/pages+%281%29.jpg Books - The Secrets of Falling https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564170346236-AZR913MSFZGW2047P0I6/pinkstrip+%281%29.jpg Books - The Secrets of Falling https://ladonnawitmer.com/books/p/angelskin monthly 0.5 2019-07-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563936933749-KH9K2YENDXDNO7XBISJD/IMG-2079.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1563937842565-233MBDQJMDH0SLKHAMS6/IMG-2079.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564169593355-33MBKAHE4X5ILARP025C/stas7.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564169611278-JB0HSUR2FHCVAJ2ZOOEP/stas8.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564169659058-WYQFTDZ5TYWX8IPDE1KW/IMG-2096.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d35ea935b6629000199f22a/1564169743935-L3ECDDIXQQ27KBS8SA25/IMG-2097.JPG Books - Shedding the Angel Skin