contracting breaths
between the sentences
of those faceless giants
that surround me
without a comprehensible sound
lost
and not quite yet
found
you'll come around,
but only once I've given in
sin, skin, and cigarettes
fleeting hope
and looming regrets
in overcast limbo
fool me once
shame for life
you said you'd never hurt me
but the pain came twice
tell her that she's alone
that she deserved it
she's on her own
well I won't let you take
her voice away
she likes to fuck
but you like to pray
kiss and makeup
because there is plenty else to hate
and your ignorance is out of date
your loneliness is just a phase
but hakuna matata is just a phrase
and happily ever after
is just a ghost in the wall
high, tripping, and falling
into ink
into dreams
into distant fucked up haze
of your forgiveness
which I am expected to accept
even when you took away
until there was nothing I had left
an intolerable possibility
that I should be so willing to receive
your gold paved poor intentions
pour them
into my poor eroded throat
just to be evoked
from a bottomless pit
where my insides should be
no clear beginning or end
to myself, or identity
like a blurry negative
or a softly fallen tree
keep the change
the empty promises
the debt and the punishment
but I'm breaking the mirror
and not the habits I loathe
dissociation
a celebration and emancipation
from the tunnels of my mind
winding and finding
yourself
so undone
this is a war that can't be won
without losing
16.
What a small weight for the most important gas,
that is keeping us alive.
I was 16 when I realized that my mom
had forever been my biggest supporter.
I was 16 and I was still holding my fingers crossed behind my back,
hoping that Santa was real.
I'm the hidden meaning behind good reasons
that have paved the way toward bad choices.
For I have realized, sitting silently in the corner,
that we are all forced to realize our
own self destruction.
Like the building and the wrecking ball,
of which I am often both.
I am your overspoken words and unsaid thoughts.
I am not the beautiful bare trees in the winter,
but instead I am your poisonous dinner.
I am the passion behind tears
and the emotion behind screams.
I am the thoughts that keep you up at night,
and your cold, bare feet.
I resemble a constant string of avoidance and indecisiveness.
I am your dewy eyes and groggy voice at 7:30 in the morning.
I am nothing but a blinking statue.
I am 16 years worth of unanswered questions.
Yet in 16 years will all I be is
another 16 years older?
I am the epitome of drowning without water,
and not to spoil the ending for you,
but I still have 16 years worth of faith,
that everything will be okay.
I remember the last time we talked
My voice trembled like a violin string
As always my mouth was numb and locked
And the phrases I couldn't utter seemed to boil and sting
I watched distraught words float by on the breeze
As I desperately tried explaining to you,
With embarrassment and unease
All we could and should be, all I dreamed and knew
Tried weaving a future from a tangled past.
I saw you through curtains of heavy fog
Your eyes bleary and glassed
I stuttered and muttered and wept and I couldn't
And I knew that I wouldn't
Give words to the ineffable mess in my brain.
I looked up, the mist breathed slowly
You walked away like a slow and silent midnight train
The sun was shining through the clouds, golden and holy
As the white haze of things unsaid weighed upon the rolling hills
She's a queen
Regal and gorgeous
She's bright as whisky, serene as earl grey
She's got lips of fire
And a body
That cost 4 kings their kingdom.
She exudes an intoxicating perfume
Her lashes are fans upon her golden cheek
Her hair is a halo of the purest gold
She walks with the fluidity of unfurling silk,
Her voice is blue velvet
And jewels fall from her mouth as she talks
I'm
A bit homely
And lost like an unlabeled envelope
And frightened like a child in the dark
I'm a full sponge, and must sometimes weep a little
My crown is ill-fitting
My eyes are weird elfin lights
My heart is as some distant, famine-struck land
I'm a ruffled little bird
And listening to me speak is like watching an unrehearsed play
We are both soldiers
Waging the same vicious war
And unfortunately
This is a world
In which only the swift and strong prevail
Sitting across from you,
as you study,
brows furrowed
is better than a hundred million other things
that seem little in comparison.
Sitting across from you,
as your fingers dance away across the keyboard
is better than the high hills in Tuscany,
thin, golden light flitting through the endless rows of great, green pines
stretching their arms upward
to kiss the warm sun,
in gentle ways, like young lovers do.
Sitting across from you,
when you’re away getting coffee,
is kind of like you still being here,
but a little colder,
a little darker
and the room doesn’t smell the same way
and I don’t feel the same kind of happiness
but knowing that you’re coming back to me
is better than watching the clouds in summer,
than the endless blue ocean veiling for a time,
the bright, brilliant, celestial fireflies, burning away,
warm in all that darkness.
Better than warm breezes carrying the stuff of flowers.
Watching the pale skin on your nose crinkle
is better than all the paintings of all the artists of all time
because it’s your skin, it’s your nose.
Sitting across from you
and hearing your soft voice is better than all the melodies,
all the strings delicately plucked,
all the songs about love,
simply because it’s your voice.
Sitting across from you
as your eyes meet mine and
watching you smile
is better than anything I could experience alone,
simply because I have you to share it with.
Sitting across from you,
just being with you,
is a marvelous experience which isn’t wasted on me,
which is why I’m telling you about it.
i've never heard anne sexton speak
and i think i've fallen in love
a masculine power
a spiritual honey dew
seeping from the hole
a ripping and raping voice
who holds a magnetism so strong
that she stuck her head in an oven
it's like we can't hold back our emotions
and emotions so strong
the impulses so impulsive
it burns you down
a burning crucifix you are
I will not go quietly, or do as you say
or extinguish my light, just to act in your play
I will never endure all your senseless remarks
That spring from your weakness like shots from the dark
I’ve often been fooled by the words of a friend
who lead me on blindly to treacherous ends
I’ve allowed you to hurt me I’ve opened my heart
As you filled it with poison and tore me apart
I will stare at the sun as my anger takes form
I will climb to great heights in the gut of the storm.
I will curse this false trust that ensnares me like rope
that binds my torn wrists and suffocates hope.
I will let my voice sound from the top of this hill
I will sing, I will dance, I will laugh, yes, I will
Your voice is fascinating.
The choices are conversating.
I notice I'm hyperventilating.
But not creating anything different.
From what I see it to be.
You see,
I've got many things running through my head.
What I could say, or say instead.
I apologize for the stuttering.
Because your eyes are fluttering.
And it's hard not to look.
For simply one look.
My knees are buckling.
For sixteen years now I've been haunted by your death,
you'd have been 27 today.
I was only 7 when it happened; when you drew your last breath,
your 'little shadow' lost something deep inside herself that day.
you were the only one who cared about me then,
alone and scared in the hospital; you were my only friend.
You helped me cope; taught me how to unleash my pen,
if I couldn't deal with it; you'd help me mend.
I thought you were fine; we'd just spoke on the phone,
making plans to go to the movies the next day.
Your voice never betrayed the 'secret' your face would have shown,
last words I heard are "I'll see you tommorrow Jenni, I promise." you say.
you never came; I knew something was off,
then that gut wrenching phone call...
my mother hung up and told me you'd died; her voice all quiet and soft.
I remember my head spinning,
I black out and fall.
It was several months after; that I found out what happened,
why you'd gone.
Your own demon won over as your depression deepened,
you hung yourself; leaving me here alone and undone.
Why did you have to go,
why must I stay all by myself?
As an adult I now understand; I know,
but it still eats me up inside; my broken innerself.
Sixteen years later; I still have that damn note you left me,
it's the only thing I've got left of you;
it reads:
"Tell Jenni I'm so sorry,
and that I love her.
Elizabeth"
He told me that if I told anyone he'd take me and my brothers and sisters away from our mom and he'd kill her.
when I was 6 my mother married my stepfather (who is phsyically, mentally, and verbally abusive), and soon after I had a tramatic black out and according to my family I stabbed my stepfather in the leg with a kitchen knife, I was screaming like a banshee, and trying to hurt myself.
My mother and stepfather took me to a psychiatric hospital and kept me there for 6 months.
I would not talk to the doctors, nurses, shrieks, anyone and everyone was an enemy as far as I was concerned.
The place was terrifiying, the kids there were all disturbed in one way or another.
Elizabeth was 13, and was there because her father had been sexually abusing her since she was 4.
She and I became friends, and she protected me against older kids that would bully others or worse.
She was the only one I opened up to, she convinced me that I should speak to the doctors, that they would help.
She assured me my father would not take me or my siblings away or harm my mother, and that he might be put in jail if I told them what happened.
I trusted her judgement so I did, and after a lot of different things I was released from the hospital.
Elizabeth and I stayed in contact, she lived a few blocks from me.
The night she killed herself we had talked about going and seeing the new disney movie that had just come out and were planning to good see it after school the next day.
My mother did tell me she died but wouldn't tell me why, wouldn't let me go to her funeral, nothing.
I found out through a friend of hers that hung out with us sometimes, and her mother years later confirmed it.
Her father had gotten off the court charges because of some techincallity, and she was to vist him every weekend.
She knew what would happen when she did, so rather than face it she hung herself in her basement.
Elizabeth was my guardian angel then, and I believe she still is today.
I miss her dearly everyday.
For E.G.Y.,
My friend, guardian angel, and sister.
Kiss me tenderly once more my love,
hold me in your strongest embrace.
Sing to me with the voice of a dove,
draw yourself into me; let us be lost on this heavenly place.
One more kiss to seal,
what in the future lies in wait; for what the Fate's shall deal.
