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Allison Jan 2018
I painted my face
all blushed cheeks and doe eyes
we laughed over wine
you touched my knee, my lies,
tonight I’m your ****** pearl
not this wasted wailing girl
I’m reborn in your gasps,
beautiful like I was when
I noticed small things
like birds, and this ache,
when the days didn’t blend
into nights, into beds, into highs.
When I’m well I’m a feminist but
tonight I just need to be
your fragile, pretty paper crane.
STOP—my mind’s getting too loud,
kiss me harder, let me stay,
we’ve all told lies here,
truth is I can’t remember who you are;
you’re the make-me-forget,
just give me some purpose tonight and
call me some other name,
please just
call me some other name.
Allison Dec 2017
Turn off the music,
stop that constant doing.
Look it in its bloodied teeth:
This broke us.
This was far too much.
We don't know how to be a person after this.
We can't even seem
to comb our hair.

All we have now
are all these pieces.
We kneel in the shards,
and feel the remnants cut,
and wail about our scarred images
and cancelled plans.

We don't know what to do
when we're shattered,
but maybe if we can just
feel this breaking,
without lusting for
the once-****** whole,
we can grow quiet enough
to hear the laughter:

for the neighbor kids
have already begun
stringing our pieces
into bracelets that say Love.

An old man is scattering
our fragments in the park.
People delight
as the pigeons descend.

A salesman peddles our scraps
door to door,  and makes enough
to finally pay the bill
that turns the lights back on.

A tailor makes a sweater
of our mistakes, while a baker
turns our heartbreaks into bread
for a different kind of breaking.

Come to the window,
these new friends call.
See what our brokenness has become.
Our pieces are raining from the sky
and quenching this parched earth.
People are dancing  in the streets.

Close your eyes and listen
to the laughter and the rainfall
of what our pieces teach.
Allison Dec 2017
Sometimes it's clear to see
depression's grim script
playing in your mind.

So in my dreams
I am a writer
who rewrites those lines.

I'd sip tea and daydream:
What adventure
to take you on next?

Each sentence, some small joy.
I'd write you chapters on,
at long last, rest.

Your mind would be
my greatest work,
my Scarlet Letter.

Not to say you'd heal overnight,
but that with each page turned,
you'd feel better.

I'd allude to our pet cat,
and all the little things
that used to matter.

The prologue would shake out the dust,
turns the lights on;
we'd watch the moths scatter.

Under my pen name,
you'd smile again. You'd comb your hair,
without me asking.

I'd sob from joy as I type because
chapter six is two hundred pages
of just you laughing.

And of course, at the end,
I'd rewrite the part when
you stopped holding my hand.

With my ink in your veins,
we'd start a new story
with our unfinished plans.
  Dec 2017 Allison
trf
Winds howl through stricken streams,
From the moonshined mountains spiking Tennessee.
Steaming copper pipes protect like turpentine,
Cherish the soil from vine to wine.

Sweetwater medicine crosses Big Sky Country lines,
And a Capitol drowns voice's reedy rhynes.
The Carolines and swamps round' New Orleans,
Spokane's foothills spire like Woodland's Cherokees.

Mushroom clouds swooped ponderosa pines,
In the desert one day, made the earth cry.

Oh Beautiful, not time to flee,
The Jersey Wetlands or Houston's calamity,
Analogous feats, magnetic societies, 
Build a bridge across contrary beliefs. 

_trf
Allison Dec 2017
I arrive at this rebirth,
a long-awaited taxi pulling up
in a winter’s downpour.
I called this cab years ago,
at that first tiny self hatred
that started it all:
When I stepped on that caterpillar
outside Ms. Harris' class.

The cab arrives at a party.
Small mouths pry:
What do you do?
Heavy brows furrow at:
I forgave myself today.
Strangers ask me my name but
I don’t know what it is so
I dive into the pool
and suddenly everything
is muffled and at peace,
and I am discovering the joy
of my hands
outstretched in the water.

This must be *******:
colors pulse
touches ******
bird songs are Vivaldi,
or maybe this is just
what it’s like
to clasp my hands
to hear the rain
to think one single mundane thought
without shame.

I hail another cab,
but this time my sins
are huddled in the back seat.
They gaze up at me
with familiar pleading eyes.
They caress my cheek
with skeleton fingers.
It’s time to go home
and watch the Price is Right
like we always do.
They are hurt
that I went anywhere
without them.
I stroke their oily hairs
and hold them
as we fall asleep.
But when I come to
they’ve faded away
and I awake
embracing myself.
Allison Dec 2017
Pulse:
There’s living and there’s dying, but worst is this half life:
this tap water dripping, slow molding of the

Mind:
It sells me lies about who’s right and wrong,
it validates my dogma but vilifies my

Soul:
That hunger that bubbles up and out my throat,
that sees myself in that wasted *** with that

Sign:
Maybe not a burning bush but a breakdown,
a point so low we used our last energy to let out this

ROAR:
Shake out your heart like a sheet;
take a torch to the hive mind and

Dance:
Spinning in an alley downtown in the rain,
the beat beats beats beats:

Love
is all that matters,
it’s all that matters now.
For a spoken word setting
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