Grilled Cheese

ExploreLog inSign up
Terms of UsePrivacy PolicyCommunity StandardsHelpGet the app

Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-16 08:00:47 EDT

PhotosVideosAllPeople
LatestRanked
Breaking the Dark I learned the house by walking through the dark, the swollen board, the shoulder of the door, the wall that took the measure of my hands. Some nights I almost called you by your name. The kettle clicked. The stove clock shed its light. I drank beside your coat and called it home. There was so much of you still being home: your shoes beneath the bench, their mouths gone dark, the window where you used to catch the light and turn, forgetting why you’d tried the door. I couldn’t give the smallest things a name that didn’t leave them shaking in my hands. So much of grief is work that needs your hands. The sheets come off. The groceries come home. A woman on the phone requests your name. I tell her. Outside, rain has made it dark. She asks if you can speak. I watch the door. The phone grows warm. The screen gives off its light. By March I’d started sleeping with the light still burning in the hall. I washed my hands and left the bathroom open at the door. I dreamed you had forgotten the way home and needed something shining through the dark, some yellow square that still recalled your name. The morning that I stopped saying your name before I spoke, I nearly blamed the light. It lay across the bed. The room was dark where I had curled around my empty hands. A bird had built beneath the eaves of home and dropped a length of string outside the door. I picked it up and stood there at the door. The neighbor waved. She knew me by my name. She asked if I had plans. I looked at home: the dusty glass, the curtains holding light. I took their heavy fabric in my hands and pulled until the rings broke through the dark. The curtains pooled like water at the door; my hands held dust. I said your name into the light. Then opened every window of our dark, unfinished home. ~ cmj
Woodsmoke and apples and rain on the leaves bring you home for a moment; Then comes the frost at the door; then comes the scent of goodbye. ~ cmj
The Rough Edges of Sleep A Nocturne Sleep comes barefoot, dragging its broken glass across the threshold of my mind. I lie between two worlds— one that has already wounded me, and one that hasn’t learned how yet. The clock chews through midnight. The shadows rearrange their bones. Somewhere behind my eyelids, a door I nailed shut begins to open. Dreams are not always soft things. Sometimes they have teeth. Sometimes they wear familiar faces. Sometimes they call you by a name you buried years ago. And morning— morning finds me with the sheets twisted like wreckage, the pillow damp with ghosts, and the terrible knowledge that even unconscious, I have been fighting to stay alive. ~ cmj
Leftovers We were good at making too much— soup, plans, room for another chair. Now I fold foil over half a Sunday, press the edges shut with both thumbs. Your mother’s bowl still has your name on masking tape beneath it. I eat standing at the fridge, cold potatoes from a fork. There is enough for tomorrow. That was once such good news. #mywriting #writingcommunity #mpprompt #mypoetry #poetryprompt
Red Bull Gives You Wiiiiings RED BULL LOYALTY CARD □ Just one today. ☑ The fridge called my name. ☑ The tab went pssst. ☑ I whispered, “I’m coming.” Five cans earn a free promise to cut back tomorrow. Tomorrow has declined to comment. ~cmj #mywriting #writingcommunity #mypoetry #mpprompt #freeversepoem
VIEWS FROM A CLOSED BOX [inside] the walls insist they are the world. four corners. one dark. one breath bouncing back. [outside] someone is arguing about whether I exist. [inside] I put my ear to the cardboard and hear probability scratching at the lid. Schrödinger’s cat is a terrible roommate— half dead, half alive, entirely sick of being a metaphor. we share the dark. it tells me: the trick is not knowing. because until the box opens I am every version of myself— the one who escaped. the one who stayed. the one who became teeth. the one who became light. [observer] they lift the lid. [inside] I close my eyes. Let them wonder. ~ cmj #mywriting #writingcommunity #mypoetry #mpprompt #poetsoftiktok
One True Thing I was born during an eclipse, with all my teeth. I once broke into a museum to put something back. I speak fluent Icelandic when frightened. A wolf followed me home for three winters. Ted Danson once flirted with me in a coffee shop. I have never lied about anything important. I buried a wedding ring under a dead oak. I can hold my breath for six minutes. And once, just once, I told the truth and nobody believed me. ~ cmj #mywriting #writingcommunity #mypoetry #mpprompt #poetsoftiktok
Updates from a crowded train a man argues softly with an empty seat the woman beside him scrolls past a photo she cannot bear to delete someone laughs too loudly at nothing someone else mouths I’m fine and this time no one believes him #mywriting #writingcommunity #mpprompt #mypoetry #cherita
Non-Political Poem I will not mention the election. I will tell you instead about the price of eggs, the woman counting coins under fluorescent light, the pharmacy receipt long enough to scarf a child, the library closing early, the school lunch returned untouched, the neighbor who keeps his porch light burning all night. I will write about weather. How the summers are longer now. How smoke arrives from somewhere else and makes itself local. I will write about bodies without saying who owns them. I will write about borders only if I mean gardens. I will write about hunger only if I mean desire. I will write about guns only if I mean the muscles in our arms. I will make this poem perfectly safe. No flags. No names. No parties. Just a woman at a register putting the milk back because she did the math. There. Nothing political at all. ~ cmj
Among Almosts I almost loved you long enough to stay. I almost loved you long enough to stay. You almost stayed long enough to love me. You almost stayed long enough to love me. Long enough, I loved you. Almost. Long enough, you stayed. Almost. I almost became the woman I imagined. I almost became the woman I imagined. She almost became the woman who survived. She almost became the woman who survived. The woman I imagined survived. Almost. The woman who survived imagined me. I almost survived what almost killed me. I almost survived what almost killed me. What almost killed me almost made me. What almost killed me almost made me. I made it. I survived. Almost. Almost is where the dead leave us. Among almosts, I became what stayed. Among almosts, I survived what loved me. The woman I imagined almost made it. The woman who stayed almost became me. I loved. I stayed. I became. I survived. Almost. Almost. Almost. **~ cmj**
Video, no description