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 Aug 2014 DAEJR
MJ L
Merman
 Aug 2014 DAEJR
MJ L
The ocean wasn’t blue enough for you
My man of  seaweed eyes
And waves would dance and cry for you
But you swam below the surface

I tosed a coin into the well
And you flipped it back to me
A silly game of ask and tell
(I wish we could’ve touched)

The earth wasn’t hard enough for me
The girl with broken lungs
And birds would fly and cry for us
But I hide behind the window

You sent me a bottled message
I tossed it back to you unopened
A silly game of hide and seek
(I wish I could’ve found you)
 May 2014 DAEJR
Anne Sexton
It was only important
to smile and hold still,
to lie down beside him
and to rest awhile,
to be folded up together
as if we were silk,
to sink from the eyes of mother
and not to talk.
The black room took us
like a cave or a mouth
or an indoor belly.
I held my breath
and daddy was there,
his thumbs, his fat skull,
his teeth, his hair growing
like a field or a shawl.
I lay by the moss
of his skin until
it grew strange. My sisters
will never know that I fall
out of myself and pretend
that Allah will not see
how I hold my daddy
like an old stone tree.
 Apr 2014 DAEJR
Wednesday
I wonder if you’d want to know
I named all of my demons after you and
they haunt me in my sleep

when I was 14 I fell asleep in April and dreamed of bones and
I’m not sure I’ve really ever woken up since

when I lost 5 pounds I never saw a difference

when I lost 10 my mother said I was looking good

when I lost 20 she told me to stop and handed me food
and I became anemic

when I lost 25 I stopped drinking anything because
I felt water had calories

when I lost 30 my mother held me on her lap
and held my bones together for me

when I lost 35 I started fainting every morning and
the doctors could no longer easily find my blood pressure

when I lost 40 people started to stare and food made me cry

when I lost 45 it hurt to walk and to lay down
it hurt to eat
it hurt to breathe and
I started throwing up my empty stomach

the mind plays tricks on those that decide
nourishment is not needed

Eat.
Inside my body feels like chaos.
There seems to be no sense to what is happening.
I am aware on a conscious level that something is going on inside my mind and soul,
but I cannot access it.
It's as if the things that torment me are lurking in the dark,
purposefully causing me pain,
luring me into the darkness,
tempting me with the idea that discovery is possible,
all the while knowing that they will not reveal themselves to me.
Rather they slowly ****** me into their realm of darkness
and begin to trick my mind that the darkness is the only truth that exists.

Darkness is a strange thing really.
On the surface it doesn’t seem very appealing.
It is something that holds fear and danger
and torments many people when presented in an external explicit way.
When presented in an internal way,
this fear and danger does not,
however,
seem to send off the same kind of alarm bells that one would normally hear.
It would, in fact, appear as if the mind is somewhat
intrigued
by the shadows within itself
that drift around like smoke in a breeze.
It is as if this intrigue
is enough to safeguard against the potentially sinister depths of a tormented soul.

I am not immune from this
as I too find myself perpetually drawn into the dark crevices of my mind.
I can only hope
that my fragile heart
remembers that it was not always shattered by darkness
– but rather
that it is held together by the Light that exists at the core of my divinely given being.
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