Christine Eglantine

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Emma, 2

i didn't go this monday
please let me explain
you knew me
but you didn't know me
you were just kind.
you were so kind.
and a lot of people weren't
and now

well

i didn't see you off
but i wanted to
the black dresses choke my heart
and remind me of when we'll all be surrounded by them
in our best clothes

i didn't tuck you in
i couldn't bare the faces
of people who knew you
looking at me
and knowing
that i shouldn't have been there
yet again

but you were kind
so so kind

i do not miss you
not like a friend who has left
but i owe you
i should have done and thanked you
but i didn't
so i'm sorry
i'm so sorry

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Emma

dying
dead
dirt
dirt
worms
burst
melt
disappear
only to be born again
as the flowers under my blanket
as i curl up and read
while thinking of you

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Birdcage

You don't even know how to swallow the sparrows
when you grabbed their dapper wings
did you?
You just grabbed and forced them down
and now they're struggling in your gut
wrestling to get out
and pecking up your maw.

Bet if they opened you
no one would see
a single bird
a single feather
or hear a single song
But they would feel all the hair rush out
as the wing beats just barely missed their faces
if they just
reached
out
they would catch one

but instead
they look down on you
the look down on me
and all they see is the ****** pink of trauma

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Chained Down

a shattered ankle
bones soaring through my leg
but I can still walk
and I try and crawl forward
I try and climb the stairs
I try and go to school

but my leg keeps telling me
that I can't
it keeps holding me back
and it keeps holding me down
just like so much of the rest of me

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

The Dealer

I cannot write.

I simply cannot.

Unless writing is merely the description of our own humanity.
In which case, I write very well
I summarize what makes myself
in a form of paper clip flat
and in the black smudges of light
on a hot laptop's screen
I make the pills you pop
when you feel the angst
and I make the black tar you shoot up
into your drowsy veins
I am the writer
I am the dealer
I am the pharmacist
I am a speaker of myself
and nothing less

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Ode to a Band

everything about it
the raising waves of sound
and the pluck of the violin
the fiddling fingers on the mandolin
and the swell of the drums

his voice bows like a singing saw
and curls down into the depths of his own feeling
and art not only in the poetry
but poetry in the very sound
i want to see the things you see
because i like the way you breathe
it pulls a soul onto its toes
both of the mind
and of the feet
and sends it dashing down the snowy roads lined by broken corn stalks
and gray buildings
and fairy lights of the city
brings us one with the buskers
and into the hearts
of every other person
who has heard it

my god, it has made us into a pool of humanity
each soul touching
in ways deeper than this
to my dear violins
and violas
and basses
and mandolins
and drummers
thank you for the gift
of sound

Christine Eglantine Oct 2013

Children as Baked Goods

Some children are like icing
and curdle on your tongue
the cheap crisco kind
that stains your clothes if it drops on them
chalky
oily
contradictions

Others are artwork
butter, chocolate, sugar, and cream
they remind me what I can make
of the sack cloth
and flour sacks
of man