Brielle: Favorites

Apr 2013 Brielle

Claire Elizabeth

The pale lips are smashed together in a fake smile, the teeth not wanting to show in the little pod of the mouth, hiding like scared peas. It’s frightening.
The eyes crinkled just right so that it looks so plastered on that you can tell it is fake, the folds overlapping again and again in an unnatural way. I blink.
The cheeks covered in makeup, splashed on in spots, smoothed over in others, splatter painted to look realistic. It doesn't work.
The fingers resting oh so stiff on the stomach raised a bit so that they are hovering above the skin, like he doesn't want to touch the dead fabric. I wouldn't.
The suit, so neatly pressed that not a wrinkle shows, except for on the collar where nobody notices. But I do.
The silk lining of the box he is resting in is shiny and overly polished, like a cherry wood dining room table with an overload of Pledge. It hurts my eyes.
The bouquet of flowers is a bundle of Death’s heavy perfume disguised as a bunch of roses and daisies. The smell is disgusting.
The picture frames surrounding the box are shined like pairs of leather shoes, embedded with gems and memories that are long past. It makes me sad.
The stuffed animals in the corner gaze deadly at the group, mold and dust sapping the life out of their beady eyes. They make me shiver.
The chair I sit on is hard and stiff, the cushion starched to the breaking point, the crackly material hardly comfortable. I squirm.
The vent above me blows a gale of cold air and underlying currents, which whips up my hair in a flurry of brown. I pat my head.
The people around me clutch tissues in bony hands, the wadded up paper soaked through with tears and makeup. It looks gross.
So as I observe every detail of this morbid place, I close my eyes and breath deep. Mistake. The air is ripe with anger and sadness, misery and frustration. Musky lady perfume, sharp man perfume. My hands clench, unclench, furl, unfurl. My throat closes up then swallows that lump of matter lodged in my my esophagus. What is death? What is Heaven? What is God and Jesus and church? What is all of that if it ends up like this? Like a cancerous tumor, like a lump of mutated cells, like a painful death? It is forgiveness and freedom and newness.
With that I open my eyes again and cry.

Apr 2013 Brielle

8

Apr 2013 Brielle

Caroline Agan

8

When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.

It's meant to be yelled at an audience, not read.

Mar 2013 Brielle

For the Rest

Mar 2013 Brielle

Barb

For the Rest

Do you feel yourself giving in
or does it happen so gradualy
that you wake up one day
and you find yourself in too deep
Our arms are swinging back and forth
Screaming for fun like children
and spining in circles until
our legs give
I am writing the past down on napkins
in restaurants
with old coffee
and I am at the point of realization
that everything means nothing to me
with the stale smell of smoke
I fall backwards
and hope someone will catch me
for once this seems to be the right thing
it never is

Mar 2013 Brielle

It comes at night

Mar 2013 Brielle

Alexa

It comes at night

It comes at night
as you lie in bed
Awake.
Every muscle is paralyzed
with fear
with terror
you can't move.

The darkness creeps across the ceiling
coming closer
hovering above you.
All you feel is fear
it encompasses every inch of you
takes your breath away.

You want to kick every muscle
scream out loud
thrash and fight.
But you cant
you cant move.

Awake
but dreaming.
You struggle to wake yourself up
to kick your legs until you can sit up
and stop the blackness from creeping over you.
But you cant
you cant move
cant cry out
cant wake up
cant make it stop.

It comes at night.
Sweet Dreams

I have had night terrors for several years now. It's the same experience every single time. This is how it goes.

#love #fear #sleep #terror

Mar 2013 Brielle

I have

Mar 2013 Brielle

Abagail Marie

I have

Have you ever sat there,
and realized you aren't real? I have.
I think about it a lot actually.
I smile all the time, but I don't want to.
I would rather lock myself in my
bedroom and sleep.

Have you ever had a dream,
and realized that dream was better than your reality?
I have.. I do that a lot actually.
I dream about going places I've never been,
and meeting new people.
Though I can never truly get away.

Have you ever looked at passing faces,
and wondered who they are as a person? I have.
I watch people everyday and wonder
if they are happy, sad, what they're hiding..
I pick them apart and try to put
them back together, to truly understand.

Have you ever wondered, which
friends of yours actually know who you really are? I have.
I don't think any of mine truly understand
who I am as a person, or how it
would be to go through, what I have.
I truly think they wouldn't care to even ask.

Have you ever broken down,
and told someone your life story for them to just shrug it off?
I have. I've told select people every detail of
my life, and it seems like it doesn't phase them at all.
Like they're just reading another fictional
novel, but they're not.

Have you ever excluded yourself,
from all fun with friends, to where you're not invited anymore?
I have. I lost most of my friends because
I was too depressed to leave my room, and none
of them knew why because I kept it to myself for so long,
so they gave up on me.

Have you ever lied to the people who love you,
just so they don't worry about you? I have.
I am the only person in my life who truly knows the
pain I've put myself through, physically and emotionally.
In many ways I have tortured myself by doing so
and completely destroyed myself.

Have you ever thought back about your past,
and wished you could go back? I have.
I wish I could erase a few things, and restart others.
I think that'd make me a better individual and
I could have a new shot at being happy,
but I can't.

Have you ever wanted to disappear for a day,
just to see if anyone would notice your absence? I have.
Every day I think about driving until I
end up where I truly want to be, and I don't
think anyone here would notice,
maybe someday.

Have you ever written,
just to get things off of your chest? I have.
I write every day thinking it'll truly help me,
and it has. I write about everything on my mind,
not for praise or acceptance, but to put myself at ease.
Just to get the weight off of my shoulders.

Feb 2013 Brielle

bruises

Feb 2013 Brielle

Sophia

bruises

i can feel it getting colder

i watch lovers turn to strangers

and it puts things in perspective

i didn’t believe in ghosts until i could still feel you after you were gone

i put the kettle on but it never goes off

and the calendar is thinning like the time

since i last touched you

looked at you

i usually hate change

but it’s you that’s changing these days

and i love you

it’s all so conflicting

my hair is growing longer

you said i looked like rapunzel

but that was when our clothes stuck to our bodies

and now the leaves are falling

and i’m left clutching these books

trying to find what i need in them

***** the novels i read at midnight

it’s you i want

i’m putting on sweaters

i dont mind the weather

but i used to stay warm with you

and things hurt worse than they used to

replaying the things you breathed into me so many months ago

if you wondered why i never used your name

in those poems that i wrote

it’s because i used love as an excuse to be shy

i’m struggling to find hidden meanings in forced glances

but life is not a mystery and we aren’t all just stories

i wash the blood off my hands

to get rid of the guilt

but the bruises from the fall remain

and my knees look like they would break in half

if you looked at me again

i wrote this in the fall

Feb 2013 Brielle

Memories Like the Tide

Feb 2013 Brielle

Ryan Wesley Tyarks

Memories Like the Tide

We build bridges.

Like links of hope

between strangers

who wish to have known each other better.

Like ways to write a letter

even if we are lost out and within the sea

when she is not so calm.

Waves break against my edges.

Solid, crash filled, and lighter than none.

When the stillness is all we are after

I clutch to the shipwrecks we made;

shifting through memories

and trying to find anything that still matters

left floating on these scattered life raft tatters.

Way out, away from the centering moon

I call to you

between dark waves and

stretched out in all ways and directions

with every bit of space for breath I have

just to see if you will long for me;

bent breaths with loose lungs expand and

Call to me, just to tell me,

“I Love you too."

Because that’s all it takes to pull me through

the icy shadows that lunge for me.

Part the space between the waves and run for me

so that I can watch the sunset

ignite spirit and burst fire in your eyes;

a cosmic light to burn through the lies.

Again for the last time.

Until the next time

you come home to my lips

and the way they crash waves with yours.

Enough that we build bridges

to find our way back to the shores

that made us wish so much for the ocean.

Right now,

I’m acknowledging the fact that

I may be just some dock that your heart can find home in for a little while.

While you’re in the gravity of my soul

Like the tides our lips pull together.

Far away from forever,

but I know it for a measure,

in your cyclical return...