Caitlyn Grisham
It’s just a disease that
Spreads like ink in spring water
In whirls that infect and stain
Contamination
When they said that my mind
Was different than everyone else’s
I believed them
I don’t know if it’s me who’s weird
Or them
I decided to start living my life
As though I didn’t know that
I was different
As if I were perfectly normal
As if I did not pray that my heart would stop
Or my soul would rot
Or my body would decompose in mid-sentence
Every time I started living,
I eventually forgot that I was doing it
And it became unremarkable.
I’ve always been terrible at poetry
I never quite understood the
Language, the motion,
The fluidity.
I love words, just not so much
When they are splattered across the page
In iambic pentameter or blank verse.
When I fell in love,
I wrote you poetry.
That’s when I knew there was no
Turning back.
You tasted like cinnamon and wanderlust
When I kissed you
And told you that I loved you.
I remember your smile
The faint outline of acceptance on your lips
And the smell of your skin
That wrapped around me
And held me above the bed in spirit.
The feel of your skin against mine
Made me want to write you love songs
That you could sing in the shower
Like you always did.
Your off-key melody lines
Always made me smile.
I can’t eat cinnamon anymore
But I still want to travel.
I just can’t tell if I want to find you
Or run as far away as is humanly possible.
Whispers push and pull at my skin,
Molding me into who they want me to be.
I’ve begun to feel as though I’ll never create anything worthwhile.
Aside from unpolished melodies.
Songs that I’ll never complete
About people who’ll never love me enough
To satisfy what I think I need.
I live through lyrical iambic pentameter,
Not through the love of another human being.
Red, red, red.
Why is everything always red?
Intense emotions: anger, frustration, violence, relapse.
They're all described and envisioned as red, but why?
As for me, I think they're more of a yellow color.
Seemingly innocent until acted upon,
Blinding for some,
and always there as a strong, and sometimes unhealthy, pillar.
I think the trick is learning to judge when your picture needs a red sunset
And when the artist needs a break.
As I write, I can feel the pain flow through
My fingers, etching words onto paper in an
Elaborate frenzy.
I see them, but I wonder if I feel them?
Truly.
In all honesty, do I ever?
It's so easy to write "perhaps", "maybe", "subsequently"
But writing doesn't have to be logical, correct, or accurate.
It's meant to be meaningful.
A leap of faith, perhaps?
That's what you asked me when I left.
A leap, yes, but not one of the faithful variety.
Instead, one of desperation.
One of fear, and one of self-preservation
Faith had nothing to do with it.
Lately, I've been praying to a god
Made of a breakable and fragile porcelain.
This religion, a cult, was nothing but a fraud.
It ate my soul, my dignity, and my self-respect.
Until...
Shh
Do you hear that?
A quiet rustling of the wings around my heart.
They once acted as torniquetes.
For now, I'll settle for a brief awakening.
A ballroom dance with ghosts,
Swirling and moving in whirls that
Daintily defy gravity;
They spin in carefully constructed paper gowns,
With edges cut like snowflakes. They skim
The ground with every side-step and stubbed toe;
Somewhere in the rhythm and momentum,
I lost myself.
