by meghanleborious | Feb 28, 2026 | Participant Writing
They have found their spot. A pair of pigeons. In the cold that slows.
We dance.
Pigeons on the windowsill. Playfully pressed against one another. The chemical salt air in gusts that lift their feathers, they nestle tightly. The warmth of two bodies. Shielded from the whipping salt wind in a frigid toxic pull that cannot knock them down. They have each other. They are warm.
We are one.
The soft embrace – no pecking order here. The birds are love against the cold. Icy steel bars they slipped through here beyond the wind, huddled in the window’s corner on cold concrete. One climbs on top of the other, then the other. The other climbs on top. The other pushes and lifts the other from behind. They adjust and search for comfort. The two feathered friends who have each other. They know each other. They are each other.
Just like that they are gone.
One moment to the next. Rise and fall. From the feet to the head. They come. They go. They come back again.
We dance.
The pigeons reappear in the window a jumbled mass of feathers in a heap. They are two yet one, nestled in the quiet space between the bars behind the world where the cold does not reach as furiously. It’s a little softer here in stillness. Together in the warmth of good intention and in our bodies stretching to the sun – the cold at our feet, we can leave the cold behind. Thoughts that warm us. Together connected in life and love, birds of a feather that flock together seeking out the sunshine of the soul.
Our dancing bodies warm then cool then warm again. Heat that rises from the inside out – swirling in passion forward from the belly of love. There is a magic that burns inside that my heart can touch and my lips can tell. Words symbols of what my body speaks. In a look, a glance, a nod and knowingness, a shared language in a space where we take refuge together. Soul searchers in togetherness moving to the now.
Dancing again. The pigeons are still here.
They’ve shifted position on the windowsill – a little to the center now. Wings that lift and loosen and settle. This quiet moment of stillness different than the one that whispered just before it. Another moment awakens to another.
Steam will again rise from sticky asphalt streets beyond this same window. The mugginess will settle on our skin in a warm sheen again. The pigeons will again flap their wings in stagnant puddles and city fountains.
We keep dancing in sunny awareness beyond the cold.
Author: Roxanna Sherwood, WritingWaves, February 2026
by meghanleborious | Feb 28, 2026 | Participant Writing
Against the floor
I am letting my body go in its tiredness
Just here, yawning and stretching my arms, my legs
For sure I didn’t know
Until against the floor
How much was there to go
I let my body roll, there on the floor, eyes closed
And very slow, I feel my breath catching the flow,
bringing new blood to all my cells
The music enters through all my senses.
I start to see with my feet. They receive the tingling of the lashes.
These newly open eyes guide me and the movement comes
I am now standing on my new eyes-flow feeling and seeing the beat
Just what it is, forgotten the I know, my feet go, my feet feel the flow, they see as they
touch, they move and caress, I have now four hands and new ears for the music rocking
my body from bottom up, from inside out and in again I have a new anatomy and a
language at my toes: feel – feed – forget – form – forgive – flourish – flow the waves
flow and the sand rolls the renewal rhythm called eternity.
Author: Maria-Luisa Ruiz, WritingWaves, February 2026
by meghanleborious | Feb 28, 2026 | Participant Writing
It inhabited their carefully curated house,
for 52 years.
And now it’s mine.
I seized it from the “to sell” pile
from eager downsizers and estate salesmen
during my dad’s transition to senior living.
It took work and money to get it home.
A man with a van–
Loud, beefy, adept.
Expensive.
Slinging it over his shoulder,
like it was nothing.
Leaving it for me to manhandle.
This carpet goes so well with my things–
my grandmother’s mahogany chest,
the Danish-design desk from an ex-lover,
Boho end tables from a closing sale.
Deep red and turquoise accent walls.
Somehow, it works,
but it feels wrong.
I am unsettled by this carpet,
How did I not notice it before?
a discolored patch, from wear and tear
perhaps from me traipsing across it
during my weekly visits,
in the sad years.
I traversed this carpet countless times,
From the front door to his lounge chair,
where he sat,
slouched over, mouth agape,
fighting sleep for me,
mustering a greeting.
Thank you for coming.
I imagine him now in his new place,
plopped down in a leatherette recliner,
parked on a speckled linoleum floor.
I wonder if he ever dreams of his old house,
full of real plants and soft lights,
and his Persian carpet,
now lying, displaced, in my home.
Author: Ida Dupont, WritingWaves, February 2026
by meghanleborious | Feb 28, 2026 | Participant Writing
An Ending
I will never forget the day it happened–
the sensation of molten fluid seeping out of me,
soaking my pants,
my inner thighs sticky with blood.
I remember thinking–
How can I run with a fat pad in my pants?
Or take a bath when I’m bleeding?
Should I stick that thing inside me instead?
I did not want to talk about it.
It was my problem.
Besides, I knew where the products were kept.
I recall trying to balance the clunky pad in my boxers,
Hoping I would not have to lose them too.
For me, its arrival was not sacred,
full of feminine promise,
and mother-daughter bonding.
It was an obstacle to be overcome,
an ending for this boy-girl.
Author: Ida Dupont, WritingWaves, February 2026
by meghanleborious | Feb 28, 2026 | Participant Writing
I had my heart broken twice last year.
No, three times.
It’s true.
And if you’re reading this
(I hope you are)
Please know: I had my heart broken by you.
By the texts we never sent,
The phone calls we never made.
By everything and every way;
By the possibility that we came
together, or alone
In the same bed
At the same time,
On the ride home,
At the drop of a dime.
I’d be there,
If you let me,
And I know you know that’s true.
There are things poetry can say
That feel scary when you do.
It’s not wrong that I’m a lover
It’s not wrong you run away
or toward something or another
That you never quite could tame.
You can call this poem desperate,
A cry for something more.
Really, I think it’s accurate
To the kind of person that you were.
Or are, I guess?
I haven’t seen you in a while.
You haven’t reached out, yet.
Yes, I still think about your smile.
And the smell of your hair,
Or your teeth after they were brushed.
God, it makes me mad,
How full I was with love.
My heart was broken.
It still is.
It may never be whole.
You’re just something to miss;
I suppose that that’s love’s toll.
Author: Alix Curnow, WritingWaves, February 2026
