Notes From the Margins

This is work done by the Tacos and Trauma Writing Group, Fall 2025 - A writing group within the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center of Middle Tennessee St

ate University (MTSU)

We met every Friday during the Fall semester 2025 to eat Tacos together and write, both separately and together, culminating in an extemporaneous group poem. Although the membership varied every week, the group began to write as a group whose voice became one as the semester progressed.

The following eight poems are the poems of this group. Thank you, Tacos and Trauma Writing Group for showing up for the group and for yourself.

Poem 7

11/7/25

Memories are random. They come whenever they want to and all we can do is receive them, look at them, feel them. They are pictures in our hearts and minds. We unravel our thoughts about these memories as they come, as we can, as we are shown how to look at them. Strange memories, ones that you’d never think you’d conjure up again, appear as they want to, as they need to, as we need them.

Memories grey in mind, but vibrant in heart,

And I’m thinking of snow in May one sunny afternoon,

And of all the contradictions that define our lives.

One can’t reach eternal happiness no matter how long he lives.

One can get close by the more one gives

The closer we get the more we can feel.