bes
bes is a senior studying Public Health and Spanish, but her first passion is writing (and coffee). Her poetry was published in The Kiln Project at Saint Louis University's “Catalyst” issue last year, and this year, several of her poems, as well as her first short story and winner of the Montesi Award, “Still Life,” are featured in this year’s “Oneiric” issue. She starred in and helped produce Kiln’s first stop motion film, “Oneiric” (check out the website here: http://thekilnproject.weebly.com). Her poetry has also been published in Milwaukee Public Museum’s “Objects and Artifacts - The Poetry of the Museum’s Collections,” Creative Communication, the EPA’s “Sense of Wonder” competition, and The Voices Project. She just bought a Royal Safari typewriter and is in LOVE with it! Find her work on Instagram at https://instagram.com/brendasuhan/.
My head
Understands
The complexity
Of your caress
And the
Power beneath
Your skin
To evoke
A deeper level
Of self destruction.
My head,
However,
Does not
Understand
The complexity
Of my carelessness
And the
Power within
My heart
To shield itself
From self destruction.
-bes-
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
The greatest mistake we make is teaching our children that monsters are not real
They are, but not in the way we imagine them
They do not hide under our beds
Do not even look like what we've been taught was evil, can't even see what is lurking
Inside of their heads
Movie villains are easily spotted in all black, ***** and cackling
The things that hide in the dark are not demons
I know
You're not a monster, you're a human just like me
Easy to pity because we both cry and bleed
You are not a monster
But you have seeped into my veins like poison
It does not matter who I am with
You will rise like the ocean and swallow me until I can't breathe
Wrapped in the arms of a lover
I freeze
His hands are not his hands his teeth are not his teeth
They are the hunters
They are yours
I know you're nothing but a ghost now
It's only the shadows of memory that seize me
But i'm back in that room and the door is locked
And I am locked and I am trapped
by hungry stares and greedy hands
Prowling like a lion and I am the prey tonight
Shouldn't have let the wolf inside
But you were dressed as my friend in an Abercrombie shirt and Hollister jeans offering what I thought was a comforting hand
But I am locked in your claws and they tear through my clothes
So I use the only defense left to me
The last resort mother nature provides
I play dead
Hoping my frozen body will somehow deter you
Turned off every light in myself one by one
The city in a power outage
Stepped out of my body like a ghost
Cold and unknowing
Hide from myself the way you cover a small child's eyes
so they wont see the ******
But pretending not to see it will not save you
Warning signs are there for a reason
Trigger warning trigger warning
I ignored all of the flashing signs
Why would I guard myself against someone I claimed to be like a brother?
Blind-sighted
Thrown off the cliff and your arms drag me down like an anchor
I am already dead
Wishing I could drown not even bothering to hold my breath
Your smile used to be so inviting but now your eyes are loaded guns and your teeth are like knives waiting to tear me to shreds
And I cannot run and I cannot hide
My body is mine my body is mine my body is mine
I know that he is not you
But you could be anyone
And in a way you already are
Because 77% of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows
And in a survey of college men 51% said that they would **** a woman if they knew they would not be caught
All the voices are yours
Telling me that I must have wanted it, because "Look at what i'm wearing."
Every shadow following me
Still hunting me as I walk to my car at night
Always prey as I look behind my shoulder every two seconds like a twitch
And I run so I can get there before you do
Every time
Before you can climb in like you did before
"No" was a word you could not comprehend, could not understand
But if dogs can learn it and listen then so can you
You were not entitled to enter my car, my house, my bed or my body and especially not my soul
I do not desire your attempts at worship
Will not let you take off my pants so you can
"Make me feel like a real woman"
I am fire burning every place your hands have touched
My body is not a piece of meat to be sacrificed on an altar
Not yours for the taking
I am a temple, a sanctuary
And you are not my God.
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 3:20 PM UTC
Right, left, back – what?
Flames flicker to the rhythm of
Your feet
And waver
At the ripple of my laughter.
Your palm pressed to mine:
Fire soldered to water.
I twirl and
Your eyes
Extinguish mine.
-bes-
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 1:17 PM UTC
Fear fed my focus
on the unsettling questions,
suggestions and thoughts
which seemed to run like a film
ever projecting // never ending.
Fear fueled and seared uncertainty
into my heart
and threatened my ability
to beat //
to breathe
correctly
Soon my lungs were collapsing
breath was decreasing
which began to impair
my vision
I then started losing and missing
the pitches of clear sounds
Which now clearly suggested
I was losing my hearing
I could no longer smell
the burning
the thirst and yearning
So tasteless and speechless I
bitterly reached out for something
near me
yet struggled to touch it for the anxiety was consuming
I found myself so
incapacitated with worry and fear
-for what it might unveil
so quickly in a sense,
I had lost all of my
senses which ultimately led me
down paths // peaks // planes // and valleys
These innate abilities were stripped // ripped from my grip
someone please find me //
before I lose everything and find
it all to be permanently
a part of me...
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 2:54 PM UTC
Not the emotion, but the numbness
that can **** a sum
of vacancy of feeling and void
in the chest, devoid
of care while bleeding out
under anesthesia spread to every nerve throughout.
A dry eye
can be the worst goodbye,
because a wound
never did heal with apathy, doomed
to infect every apology and cry
that attempts to resolve each and every lie.
But the rhythm of my fingers
stringing thought by thought,
like a surgical thread closing my heart,
is my only sense that lingers.
-bes-
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 2:53 PM UTC
Trust is a tricky creature.
It slithers its way
into our hearts, our souls.
It coils itself into the darkest chamber
inside us and calls it home.
It stretches and makes itself
comfortable until it
winds itself around our lungs,
constricting all breath,
all reason,
all sense.
And then it pierces
our most vital *****
silencing its drumming and
injecting a poison that
swims through our veins,
paralyzing us
from the heart down.
-bes-
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 5:52 PM UTC
I’m not Careless
(But I’m not Careful).
I’m not Reckless
(But I’m not Mindful).
Why can’t Helpless and Careless conceive,
and why can only Reckless and Blameful breed?
Why is it that I swaddle Responsibility, the daughter of Action?
Why is it that I nurse Responsibility, the sister of Reaction?
For how many nights must I be disturbed by Responsibility’s cries?
She is your child, not mine
(But at the market, they all mistake me for the mother).
And somewhere you sleep soundly -
While here I weep silently,
failing to calm the screams of a weary infant hovering over my heart.
Would you say I’m less than because
I refuse to be Shameful?
Would you say you’re Regretful
or just Remorseless?
Will you father Responsibility,
or will I tuck her in every night?
I can’t answer for you
(But I’m not Voiceless):
None of this makes me less than a woman,
I can say what I’m not
(But I know what I am):
Powerful.
-bes-
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
Poetry is nothing
but a play on words
that when properly tuned,
will play its melody on your heartstrings.
-bes-
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 7:59 PM UTC
“Were you *****
*****
The five little letters
in the question
I fixated on.
I gawked at the therapist,
thinking,
This session will
H-A-U-N-T me forever.
Why couldn’t those
five little letters be
L-O-V-E-D
instead?
Confused,
all I could manage to respond was,
“M-A-Y-B-E.”
-bes-
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 7:22 PM UTC