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Dani Huffman Nov 2014
I'm sad.
I don't want to
be poetic about
it, and compare my
tears to the
drops of
rain before the
storm, or how this
weight inside my
chest shortens my
breaths and
makes my
heart work
harder,
beat
harder.
I'm done with trying to
write everything
away, like paper can
keep my emotions
prisoner when I
shut the book.
Why does my
throat tighten,
and my
eyes feel heavy
with grief like lead?
Why can't I
shake the
dread and the
worry, the belief that
there won't be
a better tomorrow?
When will I
be at rest?
When will I
be asleep at two
in the morning, instead of
nursing my
demons at the
mother's breast of
my mind,
too tired to
wean then from the
****** that
drains me?
Dani Huffman Nov 2014
Mum
Sometimes I want to
scream, but forget
that I have
lungs.
Nails digging into
palms too soft,
half moon creases into
skin like nights
lasted until three
in the morning.
I cannot find
voice;
I am silent.
You may open my
mouth, but the
words are
stuck to its
roof, saturated in
its tongue.
You may rip the
duct tape off,
peeling layer upon
layer of
skin until blood
trickles down to my
teeth, but I
will not cry out,
not even smack
my lips;
I am silence.
Dani Huffman May 2014
You do not define my colors,
or how I see my
eyes in the mirror.
You don't pull the corset
laces to fit me into your
ideal waist size;
you don't take my brush and
smudge out my
imperfections.
I'll paint the sky and show
you who I really am.
I'll dip the brush onto my
tongue, write the words in the
clouds that I've wanted to
say since I could
formulate screams on my
baby lips.
I am not the sun,
but you are not the moon;
how can you hail
higher than I when you
are still standing on the
ground?
Can those who are
mighty sprout crowns from their
heads like a baby
bird grows the
feathers on its wings?
Do jewels fall from your
mouth like your voice is
worth more than
Mitus's gold?
Do the branches of the
trees fall to their
arches as you
pass them by?
If you are so, then
please,
take my hand and
paint me red with
all the
things you are that I'll
never be.
Dani Huffman May 2014
The energy has
left me;
I no longer
exist.
I am only body
parts, like
a machine set on
auto pilot.
My mind is
elsewhere,
on an adventure somewhere in
Peru, or under the
Pacific ocean's front.
It's like
they
own me,
gouge out my
eyes, cut off
my tongue and make
me pretty;
pinch my
waist and paint
my lips,
sew them like a
designer dress.
If the rest have
given up, why
shouldn't I,
a black pawn among
kings and
queens?
Dani Huffman May 2014
I can only hold on
so long,
like slips of
paper in your hand.
I am not chained
down to you or
this life;
I am
freedom.
I'll never grow the
wings of a
bird or butterfly,
or be above this
world like clouds
in the sky,
but I am not
sedentary.
I am not a
tree, but I am
grounded.
I'll stay until I
uproot or am
uprooted, taking with
me the seasons and
their grace,
the apple blossoms behind
my ears,
and my withered
arms from too
harsh a winter.
I am imagination
and spirit,
I am essence.
I am beyond this
world in
eyes and
heart, in the
scars and
hairs that
cover my body;
I am the remains
of humanity,
where humanity
itself lies within my
ashes.
Dani Huffman May 2014
The demons never say
goodnight;
they never wait until
morning.
They're waiting in
the shadows,
trolls under the bridge,
monsters in the closet,
nightmares worse than our
most sweat-drenching
dreams.

...I can never go to sleep.
Dani Huffman May 2013
My body is my
only canvas,
but my tools lack the
love and bristles of a
painter's brush.
I am a
masterpiece, an
abstract of scars and
freckled skin.
I draw lines of
blood along my
arms, carve words
into my thighs.
I tell a story in
broken lines
because my voice and
hands waiver.
The picture I paint isn't
pretty;
it's coated in
tears and
shedded make-up,
veins forever
pumping blood down
my cheeks.
But the tale it
tells is
beyond skin deep,
down to heart and
lungs and
moving limbs,
the way we
walk and the
way we sing,
how we love and
are loved,
despite titles and
the color of
our skin,
the meals we've
skipped or
how many times we've
made ourselves bleed.
You may take the
knife to your
wrist, or pour the
bleach down your
throat, but
you
are no less beautiful than the
models on TV who
bear their bones and
cover up the imperfections,
the girls at lunch who
eat whatever they
want and still are as
thin as the
toothpicks that hold their
sandwiches together,
the bigger kids who
learned to accept their
bodies before you could ever
accept yours,
or the face in the
mirror you've failed to
associate with the
one looking back.
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