One of the things Megan Falley talks about in our workshop is to get inspired – this doesn’t mean every poem has to be about something BIG or EPIC. Sometimes every day things can be just as inspiring.

And so I did just that. I was painting my nails and I noticed the name of the color was Mad Women. Nail polishes often have funny or unusual name and I decided to capitalize on this polish’s name, I even tried to get artistic and so I took a photo (clearly my skills lay in writing poetry, not taking photos…)

Mad Women – the poem & the nails

Mad Women

I have painted my nails

a shade of pink inexplicably called

“mad women”.

I love the arbitrary names of colors

but the bright fuchsia on my fingers 

is mis-named – 

when I am mad I see red – 

blood red,

blood boiling red.

Or maybe black – 

black as night,

black as my soul.

But pink? Pink doesn’t

invoke anger or womanly strength.

A man must have named

this particular shade.

I’d like to flip my pink-painted

middle finger at him…

Perhaps it is an appropriate name.