In the spirit of July’s Interdependence theme, this week’s Featured Creative is the inspiringly prolific poet, Meggie Royer. Looking through Tumblr’s “writing” tag sometime in 2013, I came across her blog, Writings for Winter, and have since fallen for her heart-on-your-sleeves-style writing that still manages to connect with cynical millennials. Meggie is a poet who’s fearlessly honest when tackling life’s most difficult emotional challenges. We thought her work perfectly captures a variety of intermingling alliances. Her third book, The No You Never Listened To, is now available via Words Dance Publishing, and her brand new online literary magazine, Persephone’s Daughters is accepting poetry, prose, and artwork focused on empowering female victims of abuse and degradation until July 8th (writers of all gender identities are welcome to submit). Throughout the week, we will feature some of our favorite poems from her blog, as well as her responses to questions about her work/creative process.
~Kim Kaletsky, Ideablog Managing Editor
“Poem for the Day I Cut My Hair in Memory of You Leaving”
Because you moved to Canada and left me here with the cat
and a few hundred bags of tea, I now compulsively drink two mugs
every day, with the Irish cream that you liked so much.
My mother’s left several messages on your voicemail machine,
wondering how you could break her daughter’s heart, but I decided
long ago that I would get your heart tattooed to my palm,
although I’m not sure the tattoo artist has the right color of ink
to match your eyes. Tonight I wake up from the throes of a dream
in which I try to kiss you in a place I’ve never kissed before,
but every spot is covered.
Here is every pair of boxer shorts you once wore
pressed into amber like insects.
The night is still turning us. I imagine you in Ontario,
alone in a high-rise apartment,
another cat from the local animal shelter curled up in your arms,
your skinny legs covered in its shedding fur.
Two years ago when my hair was at its longest
you told me you’d braid all the stars into it one day if you had
the chance; now it’s cropped close to my neck.
Today is spring-cleaning day.
I leave the box on my front doorstep for the mail carrier to handle,
double-wrapped in thick packing tape, your address scrawled
on the upper-righthand label. When you open it,
the strands will sift to the floor like snow.
Buy Meggie’s latest book, The No You Never Listened To, here. 
***
You’ve noted on your blog that you write a poem every day. Has the response you’ve received on Tumblr helped you maintain such a disciplined writing routine?
I do think it has, but it’s kind of like the devil vs. the angel. I know I have over a hundred thousand Tumblr followers and readers counting on my writing and waiting on me to post new material, which is in itself huge encouragement, as it greatly motivates me to keep writing as often as I can and keep posting. But at the same time, sometimes I do get frustrated with the responses I’ve received on Tumblr–not the positive responses, but the responses that make it sound like I owe my readers something, like I’m obligated to give them my writing. That aspect of Tumblr turns my writing into a stage show, into something I do or answer all their questions about because I feel pressured to, not because I genuinely want to. But overall the Tumblr response to my writing has helped me maintain a fairly disciplined work routine.
See more of Meggie’s Featured Creative posts on our Ideablog
~~~Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in Psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, The Harpoon Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, and more. She has won national medals for her poetry and a writing portfolio in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was the Macalester Honorable Mention recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize.
