My grandmother said
never follow singing
to the shore

especially not
when the moon is thin
as a fishbone

especially not
when the water pulls back
like a curtain

she said the kelp girl
was once a daughter

with hair the colour
of river sand
and eyes like coins
speckled with mud

she loved the sun first
of course she did

every doomed thing
begins by loving
what cannot or will not 
bend down to kiss it

each morning
she lifted her hands
through the tide
green fingers
combing the light
begging to be seen

but the sun was a vain god
and loved only
what could reflect him

so she turned
to the mountain
the old stone-king
with snow in his beard

and said
make me taller make me matter
make me something
the sea cannot swallow

but mountains do not care
for women made of weeds
so she stayed rooted to the sea bed

the gods or the universe or 
whatever you decide to name it
gave her a thousand hands
and nowhere to put them
except around stones

a little drowned thing
with a kingdom of salt and sea

now she waits beneath the black water
braiding shipwrecks into her hair

the fishermen say
they hear her singing
not for rescue anymore
but as a warning

for the day she stands
where the waves
can only watch her

the sun will see her then
of course he will

all gods adore
what refuses
to worship them

he will pour
his honeyed light
at her feet

call her golden
call her beautiful
call her almost his

but she will not bow

she will wring
the ocean
from her hair

and walk inland
leaving the whole sky behind her

still golden
still empty
still not enough.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar by , thank you for your prompt! I had a lot of fun with this!

The Muse Jar is a project where people submit something—a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

Support The Muse Jar

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

At the grand masquerade
the whole room hums

with perfume and candle smoke
and too many voices
stacked on top of each other

the chandeliers buzz
like trapped golden insects

light trembles over 
silk gloves and silver knives

and the violinist runs their bow
down your spine with each sharp note

nobody wears their real face
nobody expects you to

but nobody brings it up

not the woman
laughing too brightly
behind a swan of ice

not the man
with the fox mask
and a mouth full of 
janky teeth and champagne

not the girl
standing near the staircase
with her hands folded
in prayer she does not believe

at midnight 
the masks do not fall
that is the first lie
of every fairy tale

most of us keep wearing them
long after the carriage
has turned back into rotted fruit

long after the music stops

long after we are alone

in the kitchen
with our hands shaking
over the sink

a mask is not always vanity
anonymity

sometimes it is the only way
a child learns to survive the feast

sometimes it is
please like me

sometimes it is
please don’t leave

sometimes it is
please don’t look too closely
or you will see my real face

but I am tired
of being invited
only when I arrive
as someone else

tired of polishing
my loneliness
until it looks like charm

so let the clock strike

let the glass slipper shatter

let them gasp
when they see me

I have spent my whole life
being acceptable

now I want 
to be real.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided by to The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something—a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

Support The Muse Jar

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

Please leave your prompts, questions, strange little ideas, lines, images, memories, and inspiration in the Muse Jar below. I’ll be pulling from it for future posts. It is free to submit, but donations are prioritized, greatly appreciated and help me a lot! Also, please share so I don’t run out of prompts before the end of June 😅

Consider this an open invitation to hand me a spark and see what I make of it.

Submit a spark!

I love that you come
from somewhere
with old streets
and river light

and buildings
that look like they remember
every hand
that ever touched them

I love that there are places
in this world
that knew you
before I did

roads that held your footsteps
windows that watched you grow
a sky
that learned the sound
of your laughter
long before it reached me

and still
somehow
you crossed oceans
and borders
and ordinary impossibilities

to end up here
beside me
warm and real

turning my life
into something
I no longer need
to escape from.

This is apart of The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something—a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

Support The Muse Jar

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

I watch you move through the world
like someone carrying water
in cupped hands

so careful

as if one wrong step
might spill everything
you have spent your whole life
trying not to lose

I think about them sometimes
the younger you
and my heart turns animal with grief

the you who did not know
how much they would have
to live through
to become the person
sitting beside me now

I think about their little hope

how you must have stood there
with a basket
waiting at the edge of the woods
for someone kind to come down the path

I wish I could go back
to the place
where you learned
to be quiet

I would not to knock
not to ask politely

I would come in
with muddy boots
and turn every light on
search under every table

I would find the younger you
wherever they were hiding

and I would say
come here
      sweetheart
            nothing bad will happen now

but I cannot save who you were
before the world got to you

there is no path through the woods
that leads to then
no breadcrumb trail or white horse
no kind old woman with a spell for undoing

I think being you must hurt

not because there is anything wrong
with the shape of you

no
      never that

but because the world
has taught you 
that you must brace for the storm
even in the sunlight

because tenderness reaches for you
and you recoil
before you know you are flinching

because joy comes near
and you look for the cost

you say
it’s fine

and I hear
I have survived worse

you say
don’t worry about me

And I hear
I have never known 
      how to be cared for
            how to be a burden

                  without being punished for it

oh love
taking care of you has not once
been a burden or a pain or a hassle

I want to take your face
in my hands
and say

you do not have to earn
      the softness

you do not have to explain
      why you are tired

you do not have to be scared
      anymore

and I hate
that no kindness came your way
when you needed it most

I hate it in a way
that makes my love
feel clumsy and enormous

because what can I do with all this tenderness
except bring it to the person who made it out?

what can I do 
except kiss your hands when they shake

except tell you again and again
that none of it made you less lovable

I love you so much
just as you are

I will not ask you
to become some brighter
unharmed thing
just because 
it would hurt me less to watch

there is a freer version of you
I sometimes see radiating through
like sunlight slipping under a locked a door

and I want that for you

not instead of you
for you

but in the time between sunrises
I have and always will love you

I hope you know you do not
have to hide your suffering from me
I will gladly sit in the rain with you
so you were not alone

I will walk through the fire with you
without water or a plan
just so you can look beside you
and find someone
still reaching for your hand

I will sit beside the guarded gate
and not rattle it

I will bring my small lantern
I will tell the dark
it does not scare me

and maybe one day
you will believe
that nothing bad happens

maybe one day
you will set the armour down

and maybe not

but I hope that one day
you will look at yourself
with the same mercy
I have been trying
to hand you

until then
I love you as you are

be difficult if you must
be afraid if you must
be quiet
be strange
be unfinished

I am not here
for the version of you
the world did not wound

I am here
for the one who made it

and even when I worry for you
and hurt for you
I love you

this you

the careful miracle
the guarded garden
the holy stubborn heart

I love you here

and if you never become
less haunted
I will not love you less

I will simply keep
lighting the fire
keep setting the table

keep saying
come in
      sweetheart
            nothing bad will happen here.

you will never again ache alone

the world needs you

I love you so badly it hurts

I need you so badly
it becomes hope.

This poem’s prompt comes from . The prompt was about loving someone so deeply you can see the pain behind how they act in life.

The love in the prompt is not “I wish you were different because you are not enough,” but “I wish the world had been gentler to you, so you did not have to act this way.” Whether that be careful, or guarded, or anxious. It is not about wanting to change a person, but loving them so much you hurt when they hurt, and wanting to be a shelter of sorts to them.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided to The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something —a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

I am hoping to write a poem a day for the month of June to keep the whimsy alive through my classes, and hopefully to help me pay off some of the tuition. Thank you!

Support The Muse Jar

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

Where do I belong?

I ask the sky
I ask the river
I ask the trees

and the sky says nothing
and keeps opening

and the river says nothing
but keeps moving

and the trees do nothing
but stay

I have spent so long
mistaking every silence
for an answer
I was not worthy of hearing

so long
calling myself lost
because no one 
with a lantern came
or stayed
or took me with them

I have drawn maps
out of every person
who almost loved me

circled their soft places
named their rivers

slept in the valleys
of their attention

I thought belonging
would feel like being chosen

like someone opening the door
before I had to knock

like a hand on my back
saying
there you are

but I have learned
there are doors that open
only because they know
you will not stay long enough
to ask for a room

and there are people
who can hold you
for a little while
without ever making
a home of you

so I keep searching

because some part of me
is still standing barefoot
at the edge of the woods

waiting for the village
to remember 
the child it left behind

somewhere
there must be a version of me
who does not apologize
for soaking up sunlight

somewhere
there must be a garden
where even the wild things
are allowed to take root.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar by .

The Muse Jar is a project where people submit something—a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick one to write a poem about.

Support The Muse Jar

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

Some days
my body feels
less like a home
and more like a butcher shop
after closing

everything is raw
everything is hanging
everything is named
only by the place
it was cut from

neck
back
hip

the monster moves through me
with its apron on

humming

slaughtering

it knows the difference
between tender
and ruined

it knows exactly
where to press
to make me see God
and hate him

but the people I love
still come to the counter
to visit each morning

and so
I turn the sign to open

I force a smile
while the monster
works the saw
because I fear no one wants
to buy grief
by the pound

so
I wrap my fear of being a burden
In brown paper and twine

I arrange the slabs of me
under the glass

when the bell above the door rings
I wipe my mouth
I straighten my spine

my family
my friends
the people who say
they love me
come in

I give them
the best cuts of me

as if love has become
another customer
I cannot afford to disappoint

look
how clean I can be

look
how little blood
you had to step over

look

how beautifully I can suffer
in hopes that I
do not ruin your appetite. 

This poem is one of three that was inspired by the incredible , as well as an anonymous muse who submitted a prompt related to chronic illness.

The other two poems are “When The Weather Changes” and “A Small Blessing For The Body That Keeps Going”. I decided to post “A Small Blessing For The Body That Keeps Going” first incase anyone needs to revisit a lighter poem after reading them.

More specifically these three poems are about what it feels like to live inside a body that can change with the weather, the pressure, the smallest invisible shift in the air.

About pain that arrives before the rain does. Pain that makes a home inside you. Pain that other people cannot see, so you learn to perform wellness for them. You smile at dinner. You answer texts. You say, “I’m fine,” because explaining the full truth feels too heavy to place in someone else’s hands.

It is also about the impossible math of pain management: wanting relief, needing relief, but being afraid of what certain medications that can be addictive and dangerous.

Chronic illness can be lonely, not because there are no people around you, but because so much of it happens in private. In bathrooms. In beds. In the quiet calculation of whether you can make it through one more event, one more shift, one more normal-looking day.

If this poem made you feel seen, or if it made you think of someone you love, Ilana and I wanted to share a few Canadian resources:

Crohn’s and Colitis Canada supports people living with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis through education, community, advocacy, and research toward better treatments and cures. Their work focuses on improving the lives of children and adults affected by inflammatory bowel disease.

The Canadian Spondyloarthritis Association supports people living with spondyloarthritis, including axial spondyloarthritis and related inflammatory arthritis conditions. They provide education, advocacy, awareness, and community for patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, including work around reducing the long diagnostic delays many patients face.

Please check on your chronically ill friends. Believe them, even when they put on a brave face.

And if you are living with this too: I believe you. I believe the pain you hide. I believe the life you are building around it.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something —a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

When the weather changes
the monster wakes 
hungry

not all at once

first 
it hears pressure falling
and begins to salivate

then the beast
smells the rain
before the clouds
have even gathered

uncurls itself
from the hollow
of my pelvis

stretches its black talon
down my spine
and begins its terrible work

gurgling in the hollow of my bones

grinding marrow between its molars

gnawing
       clicking
              chewing

the medicine cabinet
is where the monster
and I meet
to discuss terms

I stand with one hand
on the counter
and one hand
around the bottle

reading the warning label

the monster wants 
the strong thing

I do not want pity
I do not want panic

I want to be believed
before I have to prove
how much it hurts

I want mercy 
without a lease

comfort without
having to gamble
the rest of my life
for one quiet hour

I will ration my relief
just enough to attend dinner

enough that I can
ask about your day
And lie about being fine

there is a grief
in being easy to love
because no one knows
how much of you
is missing from the table

there is a grief
in realizing
you have protected everyone
from your suffering
except yourself

the truth is
I have spent years
trying to be grateful
for the body
I am also trapped inside

but the world does not wait
for the body
that cannot tell the difference
between weather
and war

so I count the safe pills
like little white moons
and swallow them

with the full knowledge
that they are not enough.

This poem is one of three that was inspired by the incredible , who submitted a prompt related to chronic illness.

The other two poems are “The Butcher Shop” and “A Small Blessing For The Body That Keeps Going”. I decided to post “A Small Blessing For The Body That Keeps Going” first incase anyone needs to revisit a lighter poem after reading them.

More specifically these three poems are about what it feels like to live inside a body that can change with the weather, the pressure, the smallest invisible shift in the air.

About pain that arrives before the rain does. Pain that makes a home inside you. Pain that other people cannot see, so you learn to perform wellness for them. You smile at dinner. You answer texts. You say, “I’m fine,” because explaining the full truth feels too heavy to place in someone else’s hands.

It is also about the impossible math of pain management: wanting relief, needing relief, but being afraid of what certain medications that can be addictive and dangerous.

Chronic illness can be lonely, not because there are no people around you, but because so much of it happens in private. In bathrooms. In beds. In the quiet calculation of whether you can make it through one more event, one more shift, one more normal-looking day.

If this poem made you feel seen, or if it made you think of someone you love, Ilana and I wanted to share a few Canadian resources:

Crohn’s and Colitis Canada supports people living with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis through education, community, advocacy, and research toward better treatments and cures. Their work focuses on improving the lives of children and adults affected by inflammatory bowel disease.

The Canadian Spondyloarthritis Association supports people living with spondyloarthritis, including axial spondyloarthritis and related inflammatory arthritis conditions. They provide education, advocacy, awareness, and community for patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, including work around reducing the long diagnostic delays many patients face.

Please check on your chronically ill friends. Believe them, even when they put on a brave face.

And if you are living with this too: I believe you. I believe the pain you hide. I believe the life you are building around it.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something —a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

The kindest person I knew
was not untouched by sorrow

she was not bright
because she had never
seen the dark
she was bright
the way a window is bright
during a storm

not because the weather is merciful
but because someone
inside the house
has decided to leave a lamp on
in spite of it

Karen made the bed
out of what she had
and opened her door
like it was the easiest thing
in the world

to make room
for someone else’s pain

she gave me the mercy
of not asking me
to earn my need

took me in
when I had nowhere gentle
left to go

two weeks
which is another way of saying
fourteen mornings and nights

20 160 minutes

1 209 600 seconds

that I was not alone with myself

she gave me blankets
a corner
a place to set down
the shaking animal
that was myself

a saint with tired eyes
with laundry on the chair
a saint who said
come in

before she has even checked
if she has enough of herself
left to offer

I did not realize then
how much darkness
she had been carrying

how quietly
some people drown
while still handing out water
to everyone else

and still
she made tea

still
she folded kindness
into the small ordinary things
like sheets and crepe batter

sometimes the softest people
are not soft because life spared them
they are soft
because life did not

she did not become cruel
she made room

even broken

even hurting

and I hate
that the world
could not hold her
the way she held me

I keep thinking
there must be a name
for that kind of love

the kind that says,

I am hurting too
      but come here

the kind that says

I do not know
      how to save myself

             but maybe

                   I can help you survive

                          tonight


I wish I could see you
one last time
and place my hands
on either side of your tired face
and say

I know you were tired

I know kindness was not enough
to save you

but god

      Karen

            yours saved me


Karen

I hope wherever you are
you are welcomed

I hope the door opens for you now
and there are fresh croissant 
and fruit on the table

I hope someone says
come in

and all of the love you gave
I hope it all returns
like birds at dawn

I hope the sky is full of them

and I hope someone
has made your bed.

This poem was written for , who submitted a prompt about their friend.

If this poem made you feel seen, or if it made you think of someone you love, please check on them. Not only once, not only casually, but in the real and human ways: call twice, bring food, sit on the floor, stay a little longer, remind them there is a world waiting for them tomorrow. A kettle to sing. A bed to come back to. A door that still opens. A sky that still fills with birds.

We keep each other here in small, imperfect ways—with messages, with meals, with porch lights, with hands reaching across the dark to say: come in, stay, there is still room for you here.

Thank you for being here 🫶🏻

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something—a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

Support This Little Poetry Project

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

Bless the body
that has carried winter
in its bones
and still learned
the names of flowers

bless the person
who has lived
so much life
between the bed
and the window

bless the chronically ill
who have mistaken themselves
for burdens
because the world
did not know
how to carry them gently
like they deserved

you are not a burden

I believe you
when you say
the weather lives
in your bones

I see you
when you say
tired
and mean
hunted

I believe the pain
that did not photograph well

the swelling no one noticed

the flare that took your whole day
and left no evidence
except an unwashed cup
and unanswered texts

 and a body in bed
trying not to feel guilty
for being alive

I believe you
even when you laugh

I believe you
even when you look beautiful
       (you always do)

I believe your pain
even when you say
it’s fine
because you are too tired
to explain

you do not have to prove
the wound
by bleeding in front of me

you do not have to turn pain
into spectacle
to be worthy of care

I believe you.

I see how hard
you are trying

I see how much
it costs
to stay

you are not behind

you are not failing
because your life
does not move
like everyone else’s

the garden does not apologize
for needing rain

the moon does not apologize
for taking all night
to cross the sky

and you
beloved
do not need to apologize
for a damn thing.

This poem is one of three that was inspired by the incredible , who submitted a prompt related to chronic illness.

The other two poems are “When The Weather Changes” and “The Butcher Shop”. The other two poems are also quite a bit heavier, so I decided to post this one first incase anyone needs to revisit a lighter poem after reading them.

More specifically these three poems are about what it feels like to live inside a body that can change with the weather, the pressure, the smallest invisible shift in the air.

About pain that arrives before the rain does. Pain that makes a home inside you. Pain that other people cannot see, so you learn to perform wellness for them. You smile at dinner. You answer texts. You say, “I’m fine,” because explaining the full truth feels too heavy to place in someone else’s hands.

It is also about the impossible math of pain management: wanting relief, needing relief, but being afraid of what certain medications that can be addictive and dangerous.

Chronic illness can be lonely, not because there are no people around you, but because so much of it happens in private. In bathrooms. In beds. In the quiet calculation of whether you can make it through one more event, one more shift, one more normal-looking day.

If this poem made you feel seen, or if it made you think of someone you love, Ilana and I wanted to share a few Canadian resources:

Crohn’s and Colitis Canada supports people living with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis through education, community, advocacy, and research toward better treatments and cures. Their work focuses on improving the lives of children and adults affected by inflammatory bowel disease.

The Canadian Spondyloarthritis Association supports people living with spondyloarthritis, including axial spondyloarthritis and related inflammatory arthritis conditions. They provide education, advocacy, awareness, and community for patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, including work around reducing the long diagnostic delays many patients face.

Please check on your chronically ill friends. Believe them, even when they put on a brave face.

And if you are living with this too: I believe you. I believe the pain you hide. I believe the life you are building around it.

This post was inspired by a prompt provided in The Muse Jar, a project where people submit something —a word, memory, smell, anything—and I randomly pick some to write a poem about.

If you would like to learn more about The Muse Jar, you can see the post below.

If you would like to become a muse, you can submit here.

There is so much I cannot fix.

The cost of living. The price of school. The endless, dull panic of trying to build a life inside a world that keeps asking us to become harder, faster, more useful, more productive, less us.

There are days when everything feels too expensive. Too loud. Too uncertain. Too much. There are days when I look at the future and feel both wildly grateful to be walking toward it and quietly terrified of what it will cost to get there.

I am sure many other people feel the same, and while I navigate this crazy world, I want to bring some good to it.

My poetry collection Scraps was created using memories, and wishes, and fears of my followers and turning them into poems. A lot of people (myself included) loved that project, and I wanted to do it again!

Many of you know I had to leave my job because of my mental and physical safety, and that was something I battled with a lot. My goal in life has always been to help people, which is why I want to go into healthcare. It is also why I began sharing my poetry online.

As many of you also know, I am in my Master’s program for Precision Medicine.

Which is a sentence I still do not know how to hold casually.

I got into my Master’s program.

I am trying to build a life I once could not even imagine surviving long enough to reach. I am stepping toward something I care about deeply, something that feels like purpose and future and hard-won possibility.

And also—there is tuition. And books. And fees. And a horrifically long spreadsheet behind that dream—the unromantic math of becoming.

I have been thinking a lot about how vulnerable it is to ask for help, especially when you are someone who has spent so much of your life trying to prove you can carry everything yourself. How hard it is to say plainly: I am trying to do something beautiful, and I cannot do it completely alone.

So I wanted to make a little offering that still feels like me. I am opening The Muse Jar—a small corner of this page where you can send me a scrap from their life, and I will turn selected scraps into poems.

A scrap can be anything.

A memory. A sentence. A feeling. A word that keeps following you around. A person you miss. A regret. A kitchen after everyone has gone to bed. A love that finally feels safe. A grief you have been carrying for so long it has started to feel like part of your body.

A tiny ordinary thing you want made into art.

You could send me something like:

“the year I stopped begging to be loved”

“frozen peas”

“my mother’s hands”

“the daughter I hope to have someday”

“the first quiet morning after leaving”

“a house that never felt like home”

“I miss who I was before I learned to be afraid”

“the kitchen light at midnight”

“the world is scary and I want to be soft anyway”

Tell me as much or as little as you want, and I will take some of those scraps and try to make them into art.

These are not factory poems from a content-machine. Not perfect little products made quickly and without feeling. They are small, human things, from me to you. Written slowly. Written carefully. Written with the same tenderness I give my own scraps.

Because I think sometimes we need someone else to hold a piece of our life up to the light and say: Look. There was beauty here too. Even in this. Especially in this.

That is what poetry has always been for me. A way of proving I was alive. Making something out of what nearly ruined me. A way of gathering the pieces and saying, maybe this can become art instead of only a wound.

And right now, I am trying to build a life where I can keep doing that. Where I can keep writing. Where I can keep studying. Where I can keep making tender things in a world that so often rewards hardness. Where I can pay for school without abandoning the small creative life that helped me survive long enough to get here.

So this is the little invitation: Let me make you my muse.

Send me the sentence you have been carrying. Send me the ache. Send me the tiny beautiful thing no one else noticed. Send me the grief you do not know where to put. Send me the little scrap of your life, and I will see what poem is hiding inside it.

The Muse Jar is open to everyone.

You can leave a scrap whether you are a free reader, a paid subscriber, or someone who wants to leave a donation toward my school fund.

That said, because this is both a creative project and a school fund, paid subscriptions and donations are deeply, wildly appreciated—and they will be prioritized when choosing prompts to turn into poems.

Every paid subscription, every tip, every little coin dropped into the jar helps me pay for books, fees, tuition, and the cost of becoming the person I have worked so hard to reach.

So yes: free scraps are welcome. Free scraps will absolutely be selected. But if you want to support this project directly, help me pay for school, and increase the chance that your scrap becomes a poem, becoming a paid subscriber or leaving a donation is the best way to do that.

I’ll choose prompts throughout the month from The Muse Jar and turn selected scraps into poems with care.

You can click this image, or this link to add to the muse jar!

Paid subscriptions and donations are deeply welcome, and will go directly toward helping me pay for school. They also help me keep this page alive, keep writing, and keep making soft little things in a world that often asks us to become hard.

I’ll choose some scraps from the jar throughout the month and turn them into poems.