rachael-p-presley
American
I'm odds and ends, spare parts, and pieces of scrap held together by superglue and tape. My soul is a peculiar kind of pretty-strange and you can only see me Shine when you turn off all the lights and squint your eyes, but that's alright. I like me that way.
spring rises like the lazy morning sun
reaching with warm fingers to chase away the harsh cold
of a chilly winter frost, hard and dead.
the wind dances in it’s own rhythmic motion
and it carries the smell of cherry trees, scrapped knees,
helicopter seeds and memories better buried beneath
an aging oak tree.
i hope it blows hard enough to tear us all away.
and i hurt,
and i hurt,
and i hurt you.
the rain lingers in a light drizzle,
friendly and curious, but calming in it’s own way
it hits the window in hello, shining with a thousand
different reflections of who we were, and i follow the path
with a gentle finger, remembering a time when i had once
been so sure what i was walking towards, what we all
stood for, the dreams and pacts we made in that tiny
wooden fort and i—
i hope it rains so hard we all drown.
and i hurt,
and i hurt,
and i hurt you.
the grass is alive and breathing
it speaks a language of its own, made of
chirping crickets, talkative cicadas, and crawling weeds
ants build communities beneath the trees, bees hover over
flowers responsibly, the frogs under the porch reawaken
to a song of reeds beating gently against blooming leaves,
like our band of plastic drums and broken guitar strings.
the ground is still dry enough to catch fire instantaneously
i hope it burns everything to the ground.
and i hurt,
and i hurt,
and i hurt you.
the air is heavy and oppressive
the silence is cut by sirens and the distance recollection
of children lying, there is arguing and fighting
but the wind is done dying, the rain will not stop crying
as the thunder is trying to scream louder than everyone else.
somewhere a cellar door is closed, not on it’s own
lighting strikes an aging oak tree and wooden
foundations moan in creeks and groans as leaves
and branches whip and crack, like the sound of a raging fire
engulfing memories and consuming bones.
i hope,
and i hurt,
and i hurt.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 1:00 AM UTC
To know thy enemy is to know thy self.
Drown your sorrows like bodies.
Regret can be found in the bitter bottle,
and fear is a weakness that can last only
the shortest seconds
but strength the longest of hours.
You are titanium steel.
You have been forged and re-forged,
melted down and made a new.
You are the sea, furious, ever changing,
and swallowing everything in your path.
You are as unforgiving as the cold that made you.
You are hell and brimstone.
You rage like thunder and scream like wind,
and by God, they will rue you.
You are not an army,
you are an empire.
You are myth and legend.
You bring destruction
and breathe fire.
You are Girl.
Burn. Them. All.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 3:47 AM UTC
it’s 2:38 in the morning
and i’ve been learning all the faces on my wall
i want to tell the monsters sitting on my ceiling
to crawl back beneath my bed
the warmth of the lamplight, how my hand is spread
it reaches up and up and up
to meet shadows splintered on off-white and beige
in the low glow of winter I will not move from my place
while the wind is still moaning and the snow is still pouring
it is 2:38 in the morning
and I am not alone
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
When you say insomnia,
people think you’ve had too much caffeine.
That it’s something you’ve eaten that day.
That maybe you’re just a little stressed.
Those people do not have insomnia.
Insomnia rolls off the tongue.
It is a noun.
It is four vowels and five consonance.
It is staring at your ceiling at
four o’clock in the morning praying
to God that maybe you’ll sleep tonight.
Insomnia is knowing ahead of time
that you aren’t going to sleep tonight.
It is drinking four cups of coffee at 1:30
in the morning because your eyelids
are so heavy they feel like anvils
are holding them down.
It is seeing shapes and figures in the dark
that aren’t there.
Insomnia is dying a little inside
every time you see the sunrise.
It is watching the moon reach it’s pinnacle
and sink beneath the earth.
Insomnia is your mind working at the speed of light
and taking sixty years.
Insomnia is running a triathlon without training.
It is wondering how long your body
can take the stress before folding in on itself.
It is wondering what the hell is wrong with you
that you can’t function like a normal person.
Insomnia is taking pills that almost make
your waking nightmares look like children’s play
compared to your sleeping nightmares.
Insomnia is having waking nightmares.
It isn’t the inability to focus.
It isn’t easily fixed.
It isn’t something you deal with.
It isn’t caffeine or something you ate.
Insomnia isn’t just a noun.
It’s a disease.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
for a moment, the word stops breathing,
your heart quits pumping and bleeding in the
only healthy way it knows how.
there is silence—and then there isn’t, not anymore,
the sky is shattered by lightning and your
pulse jumps with every rumble, your body flinches with
every roar and the sky is turning far darker than it was a minute before,
the wind is like a turbine, going round and round and round,
tearing, ripping, and seething, you can see the clouds descending,
you’ve been through this time and again and you know the power
this twirling cloud will be rendering, you should be inside,
you can hear Mike Morgan yelling over the static of your TV
“prepare yourselves for the damage this will bring!
hide under mattresses, bathtubs, if you must under the kitchen sink!”
it’s coming your way, it’s picking up speed and you try not to imagine
what has made up the debris, you come to your senses,
realize it’s real, accept the fact that it’s not a drill, you grab who you can,
you shove them down stairs, you start counting heads and start saying prayers,
the cellar is dusty, you choke for clean air but it’s howling outside
and you know you won’t find any out there, metal is screeching,
someone is screaming, sirens are bleating out to anyone who cares,
it takes three men alone to make sure the door doesn’t tear off it’s hinges
in the height of the scare—and suddenly it’s over, you can’t here anything from anywhere.
the world again stands still, but it isn’t holding it’s breath,
it’s watching a thousand electric sparks die a last death.
you push against the doors, you need to breathe better air
and you can hear someone telling you that you need to take care,
but you push and you shove and you break free of your prison,
you climb out to see how your world has faired,
but there isn’t
anything
there
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 2:50 PM UTC
I feel as though I have an obligation,
A duty, you could say, to address something
We ignore almost everyday.
Washington walks on, head high
Strutting around like it owns civil liberties,
Like hearing its name is something so profound.
So I think I’ll ask what gives you the right
To tell my best friend who fights with herself
In the dark, at night, who cries herself to sleep
Because of the hardest decision of her life,
That she can’t make this choice with her own mind?
That it’s wrong when you’re so right, about things
Like pro-life.
And what gives you the final say on my brother
And his boyfriend, and their wedding day?
Oh, the bible does? Really? Okay.
Because you know there is such a thing
As separation of church and state, I’m sure.
And if religion, if God is your problem,
Where is your scorn? Why aren’t atheists and agnostics being burned
At the stake because of your proverbial witch hunt?
Ah, right, because discrimination is against the law,
And law is something you can’t shun in light
Of running a political race, or else have your own medicine
Shoved in your face.
If God is the only thing you can think to use
To your political values that are so terribly flawed,
Did you ever stop to think that I don’t believe in Him,
Your God?
That maybe I like mine better, He accepts us all.
Honestly, tell me please, how in the hell you expect
To get my vote with all your arrogant decrees?
I sincerely hope before you run, you rethink your thesis’s,
Or before you go around telling me who I can and cannot be.
So what if I don’t believe your God,
Your religion or how you live it?
What if I believe in exhibits, or Dr. Seuss?
But that’s not really the point, is it?
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 11:20 PM UTC
Falling apart and falling for you
have, to me, never been more similar or more hated.
God forbid you make this bearable for anyone else but yourself—
--so I warn you now. Be careful. Play with fire and you get burned,
a witch hunt, I think, and I’ll make sure that I’m the one who
lights the match to light the pyre, if you put me through this again
because my resolve is no longer the consistency of water.
I won’t pretend to know you love me, or know you care, because I
most certainly do not. I don’t know anything about you anymore
except the disaster you left when you left and your personal brand of disgust
for cleaning up your own mess. I’m not a girl anymore. I won’t be taken in
by you, by things you do, or by the way you look at me in the light of the moon.
There are no second chances here, just last tries—and this is yours. This is not
a game, I am not a prize, and this situation is far too dangerous for you to think otherwise.
However, you are arrogant, and proud, and cruel, and fool enough to dismiss this warning
for scorn from the very woman you burned. After all, hell hath no fury and the fire there
burns, and burns, and burns. But you refuse to know that. Know that I swear I will rip your beating
black artery out of your chest if you leave this time.
There are no second chances here, just last tries.
...So this is super old. Like, at least three years.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 9:10 PM UTC
Twenty-years old and still wishing on shooting stars
Because a part of you is still naïve and dying
A last breathe for who you are
Paper-mache hearts aren’t going to cut it this time
They can’t fix your house of fallen cards
And at the end of the day you’ll tell yourself
You’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
Sometimes it’s so hard to breathe
It’s all you can do to pull your hair and put your head
In between your knees
Pray to God it’ll be over soon,
Because the emptiness is sinking you like lead
Dead-weight on the bottom of the ocean
But you’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
You ignore their questioning looks with headstrong stubbornness
Though your nails are biting through your skin
You refuse to run from this
Not this time, not ever again, let them look
At a twenty year old ****** who’s never been on a date
Because she’s got more faith in herself
Because she knows she’s worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
They don’t understand why you refuse the boys who ask you
And you won’t tell them it’s because they’re not right,
As a sure as the rising moon
That you just have to keep waiting and wishing
On How, Why, and Who
Keep on throwing those pennys down wells
When it’s all you’ve got
When you know you’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
Nights are the hardest, you know from experience
It would be so easy to put on that little black dress and find a willing stranger
To break the rose-tented lens
To feel some affection, even if it’s only for a moment
To feel something different
Than desperate hopeful prayers to a paradise that doesn’t seem to care
But you respect yourself too much for that
And you have to believe it’s worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
Some days are worse than others
And you lose yourself in music, choke on your frustrated screams
Try to convince yourself you don’t feel nearly as smothered
And suffocated, as you want to be
Even though you’re smart and there’s more to life than love
The only thing that can be felt is that someone missing,
And oh God, you pray you’re worth it
It runs like mantra pounding through your head
(I am, I am, I am, I am)
(You are, you are, you are, you are)
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 10:32 PM UTC
You say you've got it all figured out,
got the science down at age nine-teen.
I roll my eyes, because that's just silly.
I'm older than you by a year at least,
but regardless, I watch you hitch your
skirt up and strap your heels on before
leaving the house. You think I'm crazy
to stay around only to meander about
in my fuzzy socks and stained sweatshirt.
I'll have you know that I actually quite
enjoy my one-women tea parties with
Ms. Austin and the Bronte girls on a
Friday night. At least I won't get a head
ache from strobe-lights and my utter
confusion when it comes to pretty-looking
cocktails. I realize I probably won't be
seeing you until midmorning anyway
when you stumble rather impressively
into the kitchens still in your club clothes.
You'll make a disgusted noise at my
pillow fort, my coloring books, my
towering stack of certifiable Disney
DVDS and I will pretend not to notice
that you smell like stale sweat, alcohol,
and aftershave.
You will feel compelled to tell me all
about him, all about them, all about all
of last night--down to the last disturbing
detail--and I will burry my face in my cereal
so you can't see the faces I'm making.
Undoubtedly you are bragging
(or so you think), but really, I'd rather
not have had so-and-so pawing at me
all night, because neither you nor I
know where he's been, and I personally
find no appeal in waking up in someone
else's unfamiliar room because my comforter
is super soft and fluffy and I feel like a
princess when I go to bed all clean
and cute in my PJs. This way I can get up
whenever I want and take a shower and
be loud and not have to put the seat up
when I *** or quietly try and find my way
out of someone else's home.
Also, I'm lazy most of the time so
I definitely wouldn't like the walk
home so early in the day. I have to say
that I much prefer my crayons to your
aspirin, my forts to your mysterious
bathrooms, my imaginary sword fights
to your hike home. Most importantly,
I like waking up regretting nothing the
previous the night except that I didn't
get to watch all of Mulan and what her
reflection really shows.
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 1:51 AM UTC
My heart hurts for you.
For the swirling ashes
You call home. The burning
Embers, the paper smoke
You call your soul. Thunder—
It was like thunder. A thick cloud,
Dense enough to smother the sun.
Silence settles deep in my bones. I
Breathe you in, and you constrict
My throat. You looked like snow
On the streets below.
My eyes were wide, my beliefs were
Stolen. I watched you crash, dust
To dust, and so many hearts
Were broken. The taste of
Horrifying defeat sinks in, like
You do, bitter and reeking of
Concrete and steal. And I saw
You fall, I saw you fall. I saw you
Bend and break, I saw the end of it
All. It looked like a hot knife
Cutting through butter, but the knife
Was on fire you and you were
Determined not to be deterred
From the stairwell where you heard
Every shattered window screeching
Like titanium steal, beseeching you—
Listen to the warning, 93 flights away.
But you’re on fire, on my tongue.
A reminder of the two-thousand
seven-hundred and forty-eight things I
should’ve-could’ve done.
Yes, my heart hurts for you, my son.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 11:45 PM UTC