Confessions Of A Laundry Goddess

My Therapist Is a Vagabond

2026-05-22T10:39:22.540-05:00

For Nathan Brown

He’s a poet…
partly my therapist,
partly my compass
in a mad world.

His words follow
yellow lines that
lead to humans.

Story after story
helps me feel the spirit
of someone living
where I’ve never been.

There are journals
of notes formed into verses.
Songs sung with a guitar
that helps me see what I feel.

Here in Texas where there’s
plenty of humans, but isolation is real,
I slice disconnect into connect
whenever I can with a chair by
the fire to listen to a poet
who doesn’t know how much
I need his therapy.

©Susie Clevenger 2026

You can find Nathan Brown here: brownlines

First LIght

2026-05-05T13:16:00.002-05:00

"You are always new to me."

~ John Keats

I woke this morning

to the newness of you.

Night took you to dreams

I couldn’t travel, breaths

I couldn’t take, and hours

where I wasn’t a memory.

When the sun reached

the blueness of your eyes,

yesterday was gone.

No matter how much

we had written in the

journals of our thoughts,

this Tuesday had yet

to reach for ink.

Routine shook its watch.

For a few notes of a cardinal song

we held hands and ignored it.

©Susie Clevenger 2026

Normal Is Not In My Alphabet

2026-05-02T14:28:00.000-05:00

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk,

but no flowers grow on it.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

There is beauty in being strange,

the odd one in the room,

the light in eyes that is

a reflection of imagination.

My feet are more comfortable

on gravel roads and dirt paths.

I not only listen to birds,

but hear trees speak

and flowers sing.

There is no way to seed concrete,

or translate the language of grass

through leather soles that can’t

feel its green blades.

I wasn’t born to conform,

lose the wildness of my spirit,

or not be bold enough to bloom

as a dandelion in a field of narrow minds.

©Susie Clevenger 2026

Hangnail in Artificial

2025-12-17T17:01:00.004-06:00

My words are mine, fragile, bold,

nonsensical, angry, or in any other

form or attitude that drips from my pen.

I place my heart in poetry while a

thief scans my computer to learn

what it will never feel, to attempt mastery

over an art form that can bridge sanity

with madness.

AI – Artificial Intelligence chases me to be

its teacher… A position I didn’t seek …

Yet here I am feeding a machine words

so it can simulate what it can’t create.

Is it the grand progression of regression,

a terabyte umbilical cord that starves

instead of feeds the human brain?

If I can be anything in the new path,

I will be the hangnail, the conundrum,

the albatross in data sinking software

because it can’t write how I think.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Moon in the Wild

2025-11-05T14:42:00.002-06:00

I sit quietly on a tree stump,

still as a windless night,

and as aware as the

wild things that stare

with their night vision.

I feel their questions

travel my skin in their inhales

as they assess whether

I am friend or foe.

In the November chill

alone attempts to threaten

with shadows snapping twigs

on the path behind me.

But I am not afraid because

the moon comes closer

to the pines above me

to reveal a doe trusts

I’m not her enemy.

Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Kinship

Sacred

2025-09-26T13:42:00.000-05:00

dead tree limbs

peer into a lake mirror

hoping for one more spring

gray clouds smudge

the water with prayer

©Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Capturing an Image

Space Between

2025-09-04T10:56:00.004-05:00

The space between

me and the mirror

holds assumptions,

questions, a palette

of colors that promise

they can paint away

my imperfections.

In the vanity of brushes

time sings of a much

younger me, but the

mirror is patient

as it waits for my

eyes to look into

its silver frame of reality.

In the rawness of morning

when I look into the mirror

I see my dad, my mother’s

bluntness, my daughter

who now travels across the moon.

I am growing more gracious

with the woman in the mirror.

I will never grow younger,

but I can grow bolder.

There’s no expiration date

on a dream or a day there

isn’t something to learn.

Mirror, I don’t seek you as

often as I once did…I now

spend my time trying to

be a person who reflects

the spirit of the best in me.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Mirrors

A Touch of Lavender

2025-08-17T14:03:00.002-05:00

Tonight, the moon is dressed

in lavender shadows, and

rhinestone starlight.

A showgirl dancing on

a windowsill, she tempts

a dreamer to shed inhibitions.

There’s no yesterday

or tomorrow at midnight.

Luna’s wink through the curtain

is a kiss without regrets.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Where a Paper Clip Holds Nothing

2025-08-11T16:45:00.006-05:00

In my desk drawer

are broken things,

bits of what were,

hopes of what could be.

It’s a journal without words

where a red paper clip

holds nothing together,

and a tape measure

never reached the length

of a bookshelf.

Tucked in a corner

is a faded love letter from my husband,

a few words about roses, and

how beautiful I was at seventeen.

Sticky notes lay scattered

in confetti colors of green,

pink, yellow, and blue

waiting for ink instead

of just taking up space.

I should clean it out…

send most of it to a waste basket,

but not every treasure box holds gold.

Mine is a cluttered drawer

filled with broken things, the

archaeological site of a dreamer

with a catalogue of stories to tell.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

You can find this poem here at Hello Poetry also.

Being Human

2025-07-18T15:35:00.002-05:00

I am pale flesh,

red heart, and dreams

balancing on reality.

There are days my bones

walk me beyond a horizon

of stars and stripes war,

the book of religion, and

insanity packaged as truth.

Yet, there are days I sit

in a plastic chair wondering

if I am breathing or just a statue

with iPhone hands and hollow skull.

I struggle to own my words

in the mine camp of Algorithms

pouring everything I write or say

into the clutch of Artificial Intelligence.

Every day I pinch myself to feel pain,

embrace tears that prove I still have empathy,

and place myself in another’s shoes

so I don’t become so callous I ignore suffering.

I am human trying to sustain my humanity.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Being Human

I Listen to the Voice of Limbs

2025-06-26T09:53:00.000-05:00

Where is peace in this cigarette world

of light a bomb, and smoke a nation?

Fingers doom scroll until minds go blind,

and eyes flicker as apocalyptic night lights.

I often find myself between hell and moonlight.

Honesty stalks me with my own addiction

to the thing in my hand that I try to deny

is the cheerleader of chaos.

Like an ink pen hungry for confession

I journal pain, exclaim anger, and cry

until pages are smudges even I can’t read.

I’m not a tree, but I’m a daughter of earth.

I’ve watched leaves dance, green grow brighter

when lashed by wind and assaulted by rain,

so the forest is where I run when humans

strip the flesh from my smile.

In the shade of an oak’s generosity, the potpourri of pine

I am quiet, hold every why inside my chest, and let

wonder dance through my spirit, open my brokenness

to joy and listen to the voice of limbs.

In the calm of my own heartbeat, I feel my ancestors,

human, and woody roots, sing light still comes

when you’ve burnt every candle.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Yearning For Peace

When the Heart Turns Wild

2025-06-04T15:39:00.000-05:00

She roams wild night

in watercolors painted

with the brush of autumn’s chill.

He doesn’t know her name…

Where she lives…Or if she is even real.

She is a ghost beyond his curtains

that makes him blush like

a fourteen-year-old boy.

He’s not sure why he chose to buy

a house with land the size of a church

parking lot, but if hell has a Bible,

it hoodwinked him into weakness.

Everything around him had been abandoned,

turned to rust and rot, and broken windows

that winked every time he traveled past them

to reach his driveway haunted with silhouettes

of tree limbs pasted on the pavement by the moon.

It was early October when he first saw

the ethereal beauty walking among the

frost bitten roses of his garden.

She appeared to be talking to an owl

who sat immobile on a fence post

so enraptured it didn’t budge when

he opened the back door.

Startled like a skittish kitten, she

escaped into the shadows, and no

wooing of his voice could lure

her from her seclusion.

He stood at his window for weeks

waiting for night to drink the last

wine of sunset, hoping, praying as

if he were a newborn convert climbing

out of baptismal water, she’d return.

Then on the last night before winter

would break morning’s horizon she

walked out of the ebony to stand

beneath a lantern he’d placed

on a post as if it were a lighthouse

to bring a ship safely to the shore.

He watched her standing, staring

back at him wearing a dress

so sheer he could see the pink of

her flesh flirting from beneath it.

He tried to hold the stare, not blink,

but he couldn’t stop his eyes from closing.

In that tiniest eyelash of time, she disappeared.

A hundred questions wrestled with his sanity.

She’s real...She’s not real…She’s real…

He concluded it didn’t matter. After all

love was insanity, a risking of a heart not

knowing if it can remain whole.

He wasn’t sure if tomorrow winter

would steal her from him or she

was a waif of Autumn who would

return when the oak dipped leaves in orange.

What he knew, if she was real, he wouldn’t

want to tame her. She had awakened the wild,

the fragile, the bold in him. Love had brought freedom.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Bittersweet

This Poem is Clouds, Bloom, and Sparkle

2025-04-24T06:34:00.003-05:00

This poem is an April day without sun.

This poem is two hummingbirds huddled in a rose.

This poem is rain turning grass into emerald sparkles.

This poem is walking water puddles,

and giggles echoing in the street.

This poem is a girl holding an umbrella

believing she is the princess of wind.

This poem is an April day without sun.

This poem is moments that pass too quickly,

photographs from newborn to graduation.

This poem is storms, tears, broken hearts, a friend

who sits with you while you fall apart.

This poem is two hummingbirds huddled in a rose.

This poem is a day with gray clouds

a spirit trusting she’ll find the rainbow.

This poem is a girl becoming a woman, green eyes

that hold memories, singing when there’s pain.

This poem is rain turning grass into emerald sparkles.

This poem is days without sun.

This poem is a friend in a storm.

This poem is tears with emerald sparkles.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

What's Going On? ~ Poetry Is...

NaPoWrMo Day 24

Wilting Umbrellas

2025-04-23T07:49:00.000-05:00

There is a madness to love

so compelling words chase it

to try and explain why

tenderness can grow

in a heart turned to stone.

Few seek to become vulnerable,

yet the spirit will open as orchid petals

when love finds the tiniest space of entry.

Umbrellas held so tightly to protect

a soul from another storm of rejection

wilt beneath the summer flush of attraction.

The rebirth of a heart welcomes fragile,

the risk of breaking, because to feel

love again is a horizon void of despair.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

NaPoWrMo Day 23

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Tenderness

Dear Moon

2025-04-20T07:09:00.000-05:00

Dear Moon,

At night your face

is my comfort,

nightlight, prayer candle.

In those last moments

before I dream, you

are the compass

of my imagination.

You are in the palm

of my hands, a verse

in my poetry.

Thank you is not enough,

but it is all I have.

With Humbleness,

A fragile Poet

©Susie Clevenger 2025

NaPoWriMo Day 20

Not The Best Poet

2025-04-19T07:49:00.000-05:00

There are times

my own poetry

offends me.

It makes me

face my ignorance

of form or being

so boring ink

rejects it.

I write my therapy

into stanzas wondering

if I need a therapist

or an audience.

It is bold to admit

I’m a poet when

I know I will hear rejection,

the dull “oh”, and closed

hands when I offer a book.

Should I stop writing,

perhaps,

but I doubt it.

If I were thirsty, I wouldn’t stop

drinking water just because

I couldn’t find the right glass.

©Susie Clevenger 2025

NaPoWriMo Day 19

Bold As a Dandelion

2025-04-18T06:09:00.000-05:00

Is it enough to imagine nature,

to search for it in a book,

or thumb through a picture

album trying to remember

the smell of grass after rain?

In April’s classroom resilience

is taught by dandelions

as they transform from yellow suns

to whisps of seeded moon

in the crushing footprint of sidewalks.

I cannot live in artificial or forget

the lessons and gifts the unruly,

defiant yellow flowers taught me.

They do much more than survive.

Dandelions thrive wherever they land.

Dandelions were the first bouquet

I ever chose to bring my mother,

my earliest companions in my barefoot

chase across green grass.

I have no shame in admitting I have

such allegiance to a weed.

Life too often has not been kind,

nor circumstances hopeful, but

thanks to a dandelion I clutched

so tightly I’ve learned to stand

and grow in impossible.

NaPoWriMo Day 18

Alone

2025-04-15T07:59:00.001-05:00

another

emergency

more sounds

of my feet

running tiled floors

my body trained

to move forward

while i’m falling apart

i carry a shoe

i hope never drops

another

waiting room

another

black chair

alone

NaPoWriMo Day 15

Tabernacle of Fog

2025-04-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

I walk

the wooded path,

a wraith appearing

and disappearing

in the fog.

Through the mist

I see roses caught

in the dewy clutch

of morning, and

wonder how

long they’ll escape

the scissored hands

of a bouquet.

Above me a bluebird

watches from a pin oak,

while a slight rustle

near my feet exposes

a gray rabbit debating

whether I am friend or foe.

Reverent among

the wild things

that surround me

I quietly pray

I leave no footprint

a gentle breeze

cannot erase.

NaPoWriMo Day 12

A Question of Synonyms

2025-04-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

Across the street

her grass grows much

greener than mine.

Here grass struggles

with pine needles

to feel the sun.

Could it be we

live in a thesaurus

where she chose effort

while I was assigned toil.

NaPoWriMo Day 11

If a Library Had a Junk Drawer

2025-04-08T09:33:00.003-05:00

I’m an informal gathering of words.

A dictionary that wants to be complete,

but I’ve got too much smart mouth

to be Oxford’s and a little too critical

to be Webster’s.

It’s hard to organize me also.

I’m always rearranging my address book,

(Yes, I still have a written one), because

I’ll enter someone more as a description

than by an actual name.

I also publish in sticky notes,

those brightly colored, temporary

paste its to help me remember

through the thousand forgets.

It’s like if a library had a junk drawer,

I’d be the alphabet scattered among

half empty ink pens and twisted paperclips.

NaPoWriMo ~ Day 8

Reckless

2025-04-06T09:46:00.002-05:00

A black cat moon

climbs the garden fence

stalking romantic prey

who steal kisses from starlight.

Faces flushed with thoughts

between temptation and sin

shine like ethereal orbs

against the sapphire backdrop

of 1:00 a.m.’s curtain.

Between moon and shaded windows

flirtation feels bold enough to believe

dawn doesn’t have a key to secrets.

NaPoWriMo ~ Day 6

The Peace of Wild Things

2025-02-10T16:07:00.001-06:00

Out in the pine

the blue jays gossip

about how spring will

soon show up

in a bouquet of streetlights.

Night no longer has its map.

The glare of electric eyes

has erased the star patterns

of migration.

Yet, somehow in the blinding

a robin can find its way

out of Texas to sing among

tulips in New York.

Faces blanched by winter glass

turn into rosy cheeked dreamers

as they anticipate sun feathers

of tiny yellow finches decorating

chain link fences in Oklahoma.

In the journal of humans where

nature has been replaced by

concrete the defiant voice of spring

still brings grace to souls who

cherish the peace of wild things.

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Sula

Bookmarked With Green Moss

2025-02-03T17:10:00.005-06:00

Warmed by the wild shadows

of moon stalkers I feel fearless

in the cello sonata of an owl

guiding me through the

graveyard of fallen pines.

Surrounded by breathing silhouettes

I am more alive than sitting in the assault

of digital authoritarians who are bloated

with the sound of their own voices.

The past month of three hundred and

sixty-five days has no power in this dream

world where miracles are bookmarked

with green moss and sleepy dandelions.

Dressed in the lacy pattern of stars

I am free to shed the quilt of ominous

that wearies my mind and breathe life

not infected with vocabulary that

has its thumb in a thesaurus of hate.

Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Chouette

Could It Be A Sweater For The Sun

2025-01-24T16:02:00.001-06:00

Sunlight crawls along my window

with cat paws and purring ice.

Even the queen of daylight

prefers shades of green to

the moldy gray clouds

hanging from her eyelashes.

It is ironic that a step out my door

there is no warmth in the golden orb’s

caress, yet a wink through glass

is as warm as the blanket I dream beneath.

Too cold to do more

than reach for imagination

I watch a small spider make

its trek across a windowpane and wonder

if the silk threads of its web are

a vain attempt to knit a sweater for the sun.

What's Going On? ~ What Cold Is