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  May 2015 a
Alyssa
you stand tall
facing the works of art,
Monet and
Renoir and
Van Gogh
all slowly
consuming your thoughts
color by color,
brushstroke by brushstroke
and you have
the nerve
to ask me
to point towards my favorite
masterpiece;
you pessimist,
you train wreck,
it's always been you.



Copyright ©  2015 Alyssa Packard
All Rights Reserved
from the book I hope to write
  May 2015 a
Savannah Charlish
I've spent my entire life being uninvited, ignored and never included

But now?
My loneliness is a choice
Because even though they're all begging for my attention

They are the ones who taught to me travel alone
Bad poetry makes me ugly:
Look, each line, a cliche
Each blemish, a simile;
My smile grows more bitingly smug
With each overzealous superlative.

My raccoon eyes are ringed
By metaphorical self delusions,
Badly performing alliteration-
All improvisations of incompetence;
And then the clash of symbol, deranges all thought.

Choose only the wound that is in your heart
That you would earnestly enlarge upon,
Steadfastly ignoring all the others.
a May 2015
newspaper headlines emitting fear and news channels repeating the same
informative slogans they used last week, with promises to always update the public on the ever-continuing War in the East, never to hide any event or withhold information about that death on _ street.
and they hold true, giving the name of the killer and hastily adding the fact that the murderer, aged 32, is muslim
but then, when advising the public about current naughtiness, the family whose car was bombed in yemen isn't included as part of the list. or it is, but bomber, 23, is only bomber, 23, not christian, jewish or athiest bomber, 23.
hmm.
a May 2015
a shell, contoured and carved with an aged elegance so accentuated that it practically screams its 'i'm so much better than you' chant, or
rather than scream, it whispers it softly for only my misshaped ears to hear, so that the dignified mutter echoes like a beautiful musical instrument played wrong in the crevices of my head
and
i stupidly stand, my feet sinking in the so-tainted sand, trying to come up with a retort, witty and cold enough to knock jeremy clarkson off his feet and back into top gear following a mild repercussion aimed at a light-hearted  producer - instead of acknowledging the fact that it is a ******* shell on a ******* beach
but
miss common-sense-defying with the too-happy polka-dotty headscarf and the five-minute-hipster-outfit that took an hour and thirteen minutes to form is intimidated by the shell that reminds her incomprehensibly of herself.
she's been reading too much john green.
or she's realising the truth, that she is an empty shell on a beach so trodden on that hansel and gretal would lose their footprints, that she is beauty and magnificence and elegance but she is empty, made of things she takes away from her television endeavors and her bookshelf, and she is empty.
a May 2015
And if you think I'm oppressed,
covering my hair with a silken headdress-

And if you think I'm forced,
beaten, to lengthen my sleeves and elongate my shorts-

And if you think I'm afraid,
cowering under the protection of black linen shade-

You 'most certainly take note of the society's improprieties,
that the abaya I wear is thrusted upon me,
that the niqab my sisters practice is only for he;

No. My hijab is my personality, my promise to honour my femininity,
to never allow anyone, any man, to use me;
I am a woman, a human, a feminist:
no man will control me.
just a setting-straight. or at least I think it is.
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