Chamilla Colton

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

What is poetry? Is it a bunch of words put together to create a short story? To create a description of something or someone you love or don’t? What is it? Poetry?
Poetry isn’t just any word, clustered with other words. Poetry isn’t always a story. Poetry is everything beyond the basic, pen and paper. It’s how you live. It’s in your everyday life.
Poetry is in the way one laughs, so loudly. Kind of how the wind teaches the trees to dance, and to speak. Poetry is in the way one cries, so beautifully. Kind of how the morning dew swells, and forms on a leaf or a blade of grass and drops ever so slowly. Poetry is in the way one walks, so delicately. Kind of how someone places a flower so gently, on a mossy, grave or a deadly quiet, casket. Poetry is in the way one smiles, so luminously. Kind of how the sun hides behind the soft, thick quilt of clouds, grey, because it’s so jealous. Poetry is in the way one lives, so wholly. Kind of how there’s those days better than you can believe, and those days worse than you can imagine.
Anyone can explain what poetry is, or what it may be.
But poetry is within everything. The good, the bad. The inbetween. How someone does things in their own kind of way. The way someone writes their name, the date, and the class period on the assignment they’ve been handed, knowing they probably won’t do; but they try to motivate themselves to do it anyway. How one fiddles with their fingers when they’re nervous. Picking at their nails, repeatedly popping them, and tying the tiny limbs together. Heart beating as fast as the winds racing during a tornado.
Thump-tha-thump-tha-thump.
Kind of like the sound made when you flick your chest and the deep, almost hollow sound, fills the atmosphere of the room. Or when you hit a mattress with an open palm during a fit of rage.
Poetry…
Is me, you, and everything in daily life.
Poetry is everything beyond the basic, pen and paper.

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

"Once Upon Your Lullaby"

Remember when we walked hand in hand in the rain?
We stopped dead in our tracks,
Looked each other in the eyes and kissed?
Kissed underneath the crying, muggy, sky.

You were my first,
But I was your last.
From your first real experience,
To your last hurt one.

From always looking each other in the eyes without looking away,
To not taking a glance in the hallway.
From said I love you’s,
To silent I hate you’s.

From crying tears of joy for having you,
To crying tears of brokenness for losing you.
From cuddling you,
To cuddling just the jacket left with your scent.

Remember when I told you I’d never leave you when you feared that most?
I held you until you were still like the air surrounding us.
Until your beautiful hazel crystals cleared.
I held you until you were okay again.

You were my first,
But I was your last.
From the first person you went to for help,
To not crossing your mind once, that I even exist to you anymore.

From hugs and kisses after school so you could go home,
To ignoring and building distance so we don’t feel the hurt.
From being held together so close, the air doesn’t breathe between us,

To so much space it’s
suffocating.

From being excited to share the time we’ve spent together,
To throwing it aside and never believing it was even there.
From laughing at nothing and crying because it was too much,
To nothing at all and crying because the pain was too much.

……..
Remember when we walked hand in hand in the rain?
We stopped dead in our tracks,
Looked at each other and kissed?
Kissed underneath the crying, muggy, sky.

……..
That was only in a dream,
I had,
Once upon your lullaby.

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

"Long Story Short"

"You dissect the sound of a symphony,
Like how you dissect the smoked ham sitting on your plate.

You know each instrument by name,
By key,
By sound.
Like how you know each voice,
By smile,
By laughter.

You know each instrument by its player,
How they play the notes,
Softly,
Loudly.
Like how you know each person who took your heart
And crushed it between their fingers of vines and thorns,
Sound,
Silence.

The way she says, “Hello” to you is so sweet but you know all too well
she doesn’t mean to put that sugar in the bowl of ingredients
Of how much she’s hurt you.
You know all too well about the candied scent that lingers
Around your nostrils like that one childhood smell you’ve long forgotten
Until you’ve gotten its smell then it’s gone.

Or about the way her shirt lies on your dark, bedroom floor,
Waiting to be worn and wrinkling with age,
Because it was never moved from the moment you peeled it from her body
Eager to kiss her soft, sunburnt, skin with your chapped, covered lips.

Or about the way she’d get so angry her face lit up
Like the street light on 7th and Elm
Where you and her shared the taste of originality of each other’s lips.
Oh how it hurts to remember the day,
You shared information about each other
On the edge of the sidewalk that lead it’s way to the front door of her house.
Information no one but she can know,
Like how you eat spaghetti,
Your darkest secret or fear,
The way you can’t sleep unless you have someone or something
In between your arms
And interlaced with your legs because you hate sleeping alone.
Maybe even the way you cry.

Time is a thief and a giver at the same time.
So make your time with her a long story short
Because time with her isn’t limitless,
It’s limited.
So you never know what happens in the time being
When you’ll lose her.

Make your long story short,
So you aren’t sold short."

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

"Beginning, the In-between, End"

"What’s funny is when a funeral takes place,
People bring their babies.
You bring life among a vanished one.
Life that cries not because someone’s gone,
But because they’re hungry or need their diaper changed.

All the while other mid-lives and toward-the-end lives sit and listen to one person tell a stupid story of the person laying in the casket or in a small box as ashes.

One at a time, there are stories of sadness and happiness,
Some aren’t paying attention because it hurts them,
Some don’t pay attention because it’s more awkward than sad for them,
Some just simply don’t understand quite yet about why everyone’s crying.

“Grandma’s coming back, right?”
“Grandma’s just going to be gone for awhile, ***.”
We all say those things at some point to not feel for awhile.
Because it’s too good to be true.

Sometimes we say things such as:
“I can never hug Grandma again...”
“I can never hear Grandma laugh again…”
“She’s not coming back…”
We say all those things at some point because we feel too much.

Continue to say it until it doesn’t hurt as bad,
Or to the point you’re not even phased anymore.
Numb, but not."

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

"Bad Habits"

"Do you remember?
Remember when you were so small and
Full of innocence?

Do you remember?
Remember when mommy said to never
Pick up on her bad habits?
You promised her with bright, beady, orbs of happiness,
“Yes mommy! I promise I won’t!”

Yes, to never wanting to inhale the dark cloud
From a little stick of cancer lying on the cluttered coffee table.

Yes, to never wanting to swallow the strong,
Burning liquid from the crystal bottle sitting on the counter.

Yes, to never wanting to feel the little pinch in your
Arm and end up feeling like you’re soaring.

Yes, to never saying no to anything and anyone, everything
And everyone.

Promising mommy you’ll never harm yourself,
Promising mommy you’ll never give revolting, disgusting,
Desires for another human being.
Promising mommy to stay smart and stay away.
Stay away from all of those bad habits of mommy’s.

But..
Mommy’s heart drops when she finds her
Angel in the bathroom.
Acting on the urge to feel that pinch in her arm.
A small whiskey glass with that strong, burning, liquid
Inside, on the counter next to her.
A cancer stick hanging loosely from
Her pale, dry, cracked, lips.

Fingerprints, lip prints, and all of her DNA
Follows in mommy’s bad habits.
“You promised...” Mommy said, voice hoarse.
Her daughter, her angel, her once a little ball of positivity,
Energy, happiness, and innocence.
All gone,
All because of picking up on mommy’s bad habits."

Chamilla Colton Oct 2017

"Please"

"Please. Explain what you feel?
…
How do you feel?

What do I feel?
What do you mean, ‘what do you feel?’
My stomach is churning, tying, and tossing.
What do I mean by this?
I mean:

I was told I shouldn’t fall in love, but I did.
I was told, but only from those who forbade it.
I was told I shouldn’t fall in love, but I did.
I was told, but I had fallen in and slid.
I was told I shouldn’t fall in love, but by God I did.

How do I feel?
What do you mean, ‘how do you feel?’
I feel ghastly, unpleasant.
What do I mean by this?
I mean:

I sense I shouldn’t, but I do.
I shouldn’t feel the need to care about you.
I sense I shouldn’t, but I do.
I shouldn’t sob because we’re through.
I sense I shouldn’t, but by God I do.

Spinning, spiraling, sacrificing.
The words you spit like fire are agonizing;
The reason why I’m writing,
Is so I feel less like I’ve been dehumanizing.
So I don’t feel like I’m dying,
Because of all the crying.

Actions speak louder than words,
But I believe words express more than actions;
It’s funny how your smallest attractions,
Became my biggest distractions.
How much of your abstractions,
Sent me down, crashin.
They say there’s pain within beauty,
But there’s only beauty within pain;
So tie me up in chains,
And put me on your little paper airplane,
Then send me soaring in vain,
So you don’t have to deal with me or the pain.

My heart is broken,
So are the others of broken hearts,
You make me feel sadness, but so much more remorse,
You have this gravitational force,
It has nothing but my voice, hoarse,
It’s like you’re making me sprint an insane course.

What do I feel?
What do you mean, ‘what do you feel?’
My stomach is churning, tying, and tossing.

How do I feel?
What do you mean, ‘how do you feel?’
I feel ghastly, unpleasant.
What I mean?

Let’s put it this way,
I feel,
Betrayed."

— The End —