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Jade May 2019
Ghost Writer cries.

But you can't hear her.

Sometimes,
she can't even hear herself.
Or, at least,
she chooses not to;
she chooses to ignore
the sob caught in her throat
like a pill that's washed
down the wrong way.

Ghost Writer attempts
to swallow her sob
which then catapults
to the depths
of her stomach
where she can
never
reach it
(where she can never
fully tame it
to silence).

When Ghost Writer
studies her image
in the mirror,
she can't quite comprehend
the sight of her reflection.
The intricacies of
human life become blurred,
almost inconceivable.

Head tilts in
bemusement--
"so what ?"

Lashes flit against
shrinking pupils--
"these eyes are
vortexes of dream."

Breath respires from
mouth to mirror to fog
to--
"I am not real..."

Ghost Writer's body is
tethered to the earth,
but her soul dwells elsewhere.

Heart pleads,
tries to convince her
of her own existence,
pounding with the force
of a Goddess' blood
against skeleton-key ribs.

But heart cannot
get through to her.

Heart is padlocked,
too far removed from subject,
like the monkey's heart
that "hung" in the
rose apple tree.

Phantom heart
for Phantom Woman.

But it is unclear
if Ghost Writer is the monkey
or the crocodile's wife
in our fable.

Ghost Writer is hungry,
but for what exactly
she hungers for,
she does not know.
She only knows that
she is barren
like the eye sockets
children cut out of
white bedsheets on Halloween.

The colour has been stripped
from the canvas of her creation.

Ghost Writer is
an unfulfilled masterpiece
(something will always be
missing).

So she picks up her quill
to make sense of
this senseless emptiness.

She writes and
she writes and
she writes and--
"How prolific!" they say.

Yet,
all of these poems and
not a friend to her name.

Ghost Writer
sleepwalks through
the terror of this
loneliness.

She goes to grasp
the fingertips of those
she once knew--
those who once cared
(supposedly).  
Anchors to ground her
to the reality that
threatened to strand her.

A mass of beating vessels--
proof that, as long as they
are in her presence,
as long as they can offer her
the tentative connections
of their friendship,
she, too, is alive.

But when she reaches for them,
they pull away,
seamless as the air.

Ghost Writer breaks,
haunts the desolate
alleyways of her psyche
with the plagues of
her insecurities.
Self-esteem erodes
until she devolves
into her worst nightmare--

nothing.

Ghost Writer disappears
(this time without redemption).

She leaves no souvenirs behind
to perpetuate her memory,
no tangible mementoes.

She leaves behind
only that which
will not be destroyed,
by fickle, selfish hands:

She leaves behind the
Poetry.

For even long after the
Vanishing Act has
resolved itself to the relics of
what has  been lost,
Ghost Writer shall
always have the last word.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade May 2019
On the mornings
I woke up angry,
I would put on
a thick layer of eyeliner
before I left for school,
eyelids streaked purple,
a violet horizon backdropping  
the contour of my lash line.

I wore my makeup
like war paint
as if to send the message:

You cannot begin
to comprehend
this darkness I carry.

It is not an energy
to be toyed with.

I am not to be toyed with.

Don't you DARE **** with me.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade May 2019
⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠
~
Over the years,
I have cultivated
many an intriguing
hiding spot for my sorrows--
concealed inside of
my phone case;
pressed between
the mattress and the box spring;
wrapped in paper towel
and tucked trepidatiously
beneath my bra strap.

But of them all,
my favourite
was the book--
some fantasy novel
whose name I can't recall,
hollowed out with
a pair of scissors
and a ballpoint pen
to make room
for the razor blade.

It was a secret
that had authored
an entirely new meaning
of paper cuts.

In that moment,
I couldn't have felt
more like a tortured artist.

I couldn't have felt
more like a
poet.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade May 2019
Every step I take
is catatonic,
an acute contrast to
the way my thoughts
bolt about the
convoluted labyrinth
of my psyche.

I couldn't stop crying this morning,  
so I took an extra Cipralex*
in the hopes that
my mind would slow down,
even though it has
only been twelve hours
since I last took one,
even though it is
a once-a-day type of thing.  

When I go to brush my teeth,
I stare, bemused,
at the bristles,
how it appears as though
they have been passed under
a fisheye lens.

I feel like I am framed
in a Margaret Keane painting.
Every object or face
I happen to fixate on
seems so comically magnified
that it's actually quite sad.

For I simply haven't the room
in this heart of mine
to house something so
colossal.

I am a broken home.

I try to cover up
the blemishes
the thumbtacks have
left in the walls with
glow-in-the-dark stickers
and photographs of
Audrey Hepburn.
But the stickers have begun
to bubble and peel,
the photographs never
resting flat against the surface.

Your typical bandaid solution--
but bandaids don't heal scars,
they only cover them.

When it is dark out,
the scars look like tree branches,
the type that scritch-tap
against the window pane
only to startle you awake
as the world approaches
the pinnacle of night.

I've strung up
fairy lights round
the perimeter of each room,
in the hopes that the scars
won't appear so ghastly
amongst the shadows.

Sometimes,
I plug too many
lights in at once,
the circuits overload,
and then--
blackout.

This dollhouse has shattered;
up until now,
the other girls and boys
loved to play with me,
though they never did play nice.

They pried my doors
from their hinges,
stole away the secrets
nailed beneath the floorboards
only to shun me
when it came to
their own indiscretions.

Atop the satin bedsheets
their tear stains,
some clear dollops,
some mascara-winged streaks
across the pillowcases.

But when I would cry?

The corridors would
ring with silence--
with the echoes of
nobody.

Empty.

Forgotten.

In my mutilated aftermath,
the little boys and girls
no longer had any use for me--
rarely does anyone wish
to entertain the broken.
A cruelly ironic situation
considering they were the ones
who tore me apart in the first place
(but god forbid
they ever take responsibility
for their transgressions).

So they hid me away
in their attics.
at the back of their closets.
underneath their beds
amongst the lost socks;
the dust bunnies;
the monsters.

This is what it looks
like to be continuously
taken advantage of
without ever quite
mustering the courage
to stand up for yourself.

I am the marionette girl.

Eyes a porcelain glaze,
I watch you leave.
I try to look away,
but the strings
protruding from my scalp
pull me upright.

There is no liberation
for the betrayed.

There is only sadness
for the betrayal,
only pills to stymie
the sadness.

But like these strings,
this sadness remains
tethered-to-me

(always).

~

"Why do you want to **** yourself, Jade? So people will miss you? Is that it?"

"I want to **** myself because I know they wouldn't."
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade Apr 2019
For the longest time,
I would wonder
why,
on the mere cusp of 17,
I began to drink.

I'd always assumed it
was because I was so
sad.

But now,
while I'm sure that
sadness was most certainly
a contributing force,
I don't think
it was the true perpetrator.

See,
all the other girls
in my grade were always off
******* or getting high
or embarking on whatever
risque adventures
they'd broadcast on Snapchat
the next morning.

I think all I ever wanted
was a scandal to call my own.

I wanted to prove
something to myself--
that,
no matter what
people said about me,
I could be bad too.

~

This one time,
I bought a squirt gun
from the dollar store.

I wanted to get drunk
the way I'd watched
Cassie from Skins
get drunk
in this one episode.

So,
I filled up my gun
with *****
before holstering it
against my tongue.

Then,
I pulled the trigger.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade Apr 2019
The Spring
detests the girl
with the ivory complexion,
dollops of rosy flesh
sunk against her face
like discarded peach pits
(and discarded
is she.
forgotten
is she).

Mother Nature's
Alabaster *******,
they've dubbed her.

And tried Mother Nature
to preach tranquillity
to her daughter,
a reminder to always keep
still
amidst any tempest
****** into her path.  

But mother,
I am the tempest.

Come tomorrow morning,
the spring snow
will have melted,
but frigid I shall remain.

Dissonant and
storm-wrenched
I shall remain.

All the world begins to thaw
as I loll about in
the tundra of this loneliness.

When dawn arrives,
I will draw the curtains
before the rising sun
shoots me that beam
of apocalyptic grin.

The world is not ending,
you will tell me
(but mine is).

I have always existed
separately
from the rest,
you see.

The bright evenings and the even brighter mornings.

The unmistakably poignant scent of freshly-cut grass.

Marmalade sunsets that descend effortlessly into their celestial counterparts.

Flowers blossoming to profound vibrancy.

I wish I could tell the flowers
it is only a matter of time
before some wandering child
will rip apart their petals
in a ruthless game of
“He Loves Me
He Loves Me Not.”

(Child,
I Know this game
all too well—
the perils of picking
an even number
of petals).

And it is only a matter of time
before autumn dolls out
its wiltings.

I am also well accustomed
to the art of wilting,
you know.

The only difference
between me
and the sunflowers
is that the spring
belongs to them.

It is the epoch
of renewal,
of second chances
in spite of their inevitable
witherings,
both past and future.

But the present--
the spring--
it will always belong to them.

I know not
how it feels
to heal alongside
the sunflowers.

I know not
what it means
to shed the prospect of
death
even if it is only
temporary.

My heart is caught
in an impenetrable limbo.

Tell me
Mother Nature,
how do I move on?

For letting go
seems a foreign enigma
to me.

So,
really,
what else am I to do
but draw the curtains
each sunrise?

As I am left to weather
the deluge
while all the world blooms,
as I am left to
pour,
I desperately
await the
rain.

For it is only
in the rain
that I shall return home.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
Jade Apr 2019
Dear Reader,

I give you permission.

I give you permission
to scar the spine
of this book
from the countless
times you will
crack it open.  

I give you permission
to highlight
and underline
and doodle
and annotate
these pages
until they have
no room to breathe.

I give you permission
to accidentally
drop
wet
spill on-
backpack-shove
the cover.

I give you permission
to dog-ear the corners
when you've lost
your bookmark
(and your way).

I give you permission
to break in these words
with the same
calamitous,
neurotic,
frenzied
passion with which
I wrote them.

I give you permission
to make this
Poetry your home.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

jadefbartlett.wixsite.com/tickledpurple

(P.S. Use a computer to ensure an optimal reading experience.)
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