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An Invitation
Hannah Southard Apr 2018
An Invitation
I am hosting my own funeral today.

Everyone’s invited.

Come watch as I dance around the flames that turn the broken pieces of my being into ash and take a handful with you. Fling my dust to every corner of the earth with as much force as you can muster from hatred, or love, or both.

Listen to me sing my own eulogy through the tears of joy which stream down my checks as I raise both hands to the sky after chaining them to my sides for so long. Listen to the stories about the version of myself currently ablaze on the pyre before your eyes.

Listen to the ringing of the bells I’ve tied to my ankles so that I cannot hide within my movements, each step in-time with the music of the cosmos which sounds through the dark tree branches and echoes in the empty spaces I’ve created.

Feel free to tell your own stories about the dead, be them happy or sad. Don’t wait for me to finish because I’m not sure I’ll ever be done. Dance with me, throw yourself on the fire, let go of the dying pieces of yourself and watch them become ash, mixing with all the other until you don’t know what is you, and what is me, and what is no one.

I’m hosting my own birthday tomorrow.

No one is invited.

No one is allowed to watch as I wander down to the waves and walk slowly into the cold water, letting it wrap around the brand-new pieces of myself. My legs will be tired from dancing, my arms still lifted upwards trying to feel the wind weave between my fingers. I must be alone now, the pieces of me that were afraid of loneliness are being scattered by strangers to the corners of the world where my new body will never travel.

This is not a celebration to be witnessed. This is a homecoming for one. This is a rebirth without fear, and sadness, and pain. It may not stay that way for long but for now it is pure.

If it doesn’t last, keep your eye out for an invitation to a funeral.

Wear your dancing shoes.
Continue reading...
An open letter to the small dark hours of the morning,
Hannah Southard Nov 2013
An open letter to the small dark hours of the morning,
We don’t usually see each other,
I’m asleep, dreaming myself a superhero, or a maybe a victim
You creep around, so as not to wake me,
envelopment in the warmth that comes from the layers and layers
I have stacked on my body
gently rippling like a sheet in a warm summer breeze.

But occasionally we meet,
my tired eyes still open wide searching for a focus point
my fingers moving lazily across the keyboard
drunk from a mix of one part darkness, three parts chill,
hitting letters to form words in a language I can assume is only understood by gods.
In you creep, slowly growing as the twinkling lights on the sidewalk
blink out,
one
by one,
hiding whatever the darkness holds.

You lose you warmth,
become a ghost passing through and chilling my bones
putting knots in my spine, hunching me over,
my legs become twisted and contorted under me
as you slowly **** the life out of one foot
sticking it with a million little needles

This is your invitation to sleep,
by making consciousness so unbearable
that every blink becomes longer, as if trying to escape whatever reality
I’ve been forced to stay up with this long.

You lay me down, pull up the covers,
holding me gently like a lover
letting me rest
letting me escape
letting me sleep.
Continue reading...
Ashes
Hannah Southard Nov 2015
Ashes
I have lost my strive for greatness.
The piece of me that wanted so badly to make something of life, has withered away,
dried up from the restless nights where my mind wouldn’t quiet down so my eyes could sleep.
Exhausted and malnourished it gave up trying to breathe life into my lungs,
leaving only ashes like those from cigarettes,
Burning holes in the lining of my hopes.
Continue reading...
Bookworm
Hannah Southard Apr 2014
Bookworm
She donned the hats of worlds
that she so was desperate
to be part of that she became lost.
Flipping through the delicate pages
of lands so thin that if you looked too closely
they would break like a spider’s web.

She became entangled in the web,
drowning herself among the worlds
which she dissected so closely,
that from the outside she might appear desperate
to blend herself into the pages
a new piece of herself each time lost.

To everyone outside she was lost
caught up in her web
of what seemed a set of carnivorous pages
biting off a new piece in each of the worlds
she visited, desperate
to keep her there and watch her closely.

In her life they watched her closely
making sure that she would not be forever lost
and because they were desperate
took the blade of reality to her web
tearing holes in her worlds
ripping apart pages upon pages.

And as each of the pages
that were tied to her so closely
were torn away, so were her worlds
the pieces of herself left there were lost
still entangled in the shredded web
hanging limply, she was desperate.

But when they saw that she was desperate
alone surrounded by the pages
trying to sew together the strings of the web
they watched her closely
as she stumbled around, lost,
without the pieces of herself she left in those worlds.

Feeling so desperate, she examined them closely
pieces of pages, all their meaning having been lost,
trying to weave together the strands of her web wide worlds.
Continue reading...
Fate
Hannah Southard Aug 2019
Fate
People like to believe that they are both what is inherently wrong and what is blessedly right in this world. Inside our brains lives both a God complex and the most crippling anxiety to have ever roamed the face of the Earth, constantly battling to keep us walking down a tightrope of morality suspended over the eternal threat of damnation no matter if we believe it or not.

We are born uptight, pretentious creatures, and spend our years trying to paint our beings in the most perfectly haloed light, while trying to make it look like we are not holding the paintbrush for ourselves, but for those around us. We can never be truly selfless, to be completely and utterly so we would have to break our own necks, peel back our own flesh, sacrifice our own immortality (if one can call it that), and be forgotten. To be truly selfless is to take yourself out of the equation all together. To recognize both the significance and insignificance of the sparks flying around your body and mind.

*

This is not to say that we cannot be powerful. That we cannot walk out into the darkness and scream loud enough for the whole cosmos to feel. We can hold a torch to the looming mouth of the caves that stand before us, waiting for us to decide if we want to play God in our own existence, challenging the burning feeling in our core that begs for us to turn back to the light.

The horrid truth is that it may or may not matter which way we go. We can lay down our flame, close our eyes and twirl in circles until the compass points us to no where, and walk whichever way that may be. If enough time passes, if we walk until our feet bleed and our hands shake, it won't matter where we have ended up. That is the place we must sit, the ground will welcome our form, and we will know we are exactly where we are meant to be. Alone, quiet, proving nothing to the world, proving nothing to ourselves, unafraid and unashamed.
Continue reading...
Fear
Hannah Southard May 2016
Fear
I don’t feel anymore
As a child I know I must have felt something
Sadness, happiness, love, anything
But now
I’m afraid I’ve lost my emotions
Somewhere
Deep inside
A string was cut that tethered my mind to my heart
And my heart to my mouth.

And when you touched me so softly
I should have felt something
Tremors through my hips moving up and down my body
I know what I’m supposed to feel
There should have been sparks when your lips touched mine
When you whispered in my ear over the pounding music
Outshone only by the pounding of my heart
Trying to beat out a rhythm to my brain
Some strange Morse code that was lost in translation.

I want more than anything to mend myself
To reattach the string that let love flow through my veins
But even when I try
When I light a liquor fire in my stomach
To mimic the burning of passion
My hands remain cold
Lifeless as they stroke the sides of your face
And I want to love it
I want to lay down beside it
Feel again like when I was a child
But it seems like only one emotion was spared
When the others were destroyed.

Fear.
Continue reading...
Heart to Heart
Hannah Southard Oct 2012
Heart to Heart
A man, about 50, sitting on a street corner,
A change cup sitting in his lap with only a few ***** pennies resting on the bottom, rattling slightly.
A small girl with a blue dress walks along behind her mother, holding her hand.
She stops.
She peers at the man, head tilted to the right inquisitively.
Her mother tugs her hand slightly but the girl stays put,
just staring.
The man stares back at her, watery eyes watching her hesitantly.
Suddenly, the girl steps towards him.
A quick “Hi” escapes her lips.
The ghost of a smile passes over the man's face,
cracking his dark skin which, hasn't stretched this way for a long time.
The girl's mom stands, clicking the heel of her shoe impatiently on the sidewalk.
The girl slowly lowers herself and sits on the cold cement in front of the man.
Her blue eyes look deep into his own faded brown ones.
She slides closer to him and looks into his cup.
She looks quizzically up at him, her face asking why there is so little inside.
Her mother steps forward now and attempts to grab her away.
The girl lunges to the man; she wraps her small pale arms around the mans dark neck.
He raises his arms tentatively, holding them around her small frame.
Her mother pulls her away and carries her down the street,
leaving the man sitting alone on the corner,
no better off than before,
but then again,
much better off...
Continue reading...
I am Stardust
Hannah Southard Mar 2013
I am Stardust
I am stardust
I am full of not bones and tissues, but stardust.
If you were to cut me open from neck to naval,
out would pour dust.
And it is not the dust that is wiped off cabinets and from under beds,
but the dust from the sky,
the dust that doesn't know where it's been,
or where it is going,
but it knows one thing,
I am stardust.

And this dust is mixed,
mixed with lust,
and not with lust for you, or you,
but for there,
wanderlust,
I am dust and I am lust,
and I don't know from where I came and I don't know where I am going,
but I do know one thing,
I am stardust.

And I am settling.
For sixteen years I have settled,
but when the countdown ends,
when the caps fly up,
so will my dust,
and I will scatter
and I wont know where I am going,
and I wont remember where I'm from,
but I'll know one thing,
I am stardust.
Continue reading...
In Lieu of Boston
Hannah Southard Apr 2013
In Lieu of Boston
I don't believe in fate,
I believe in chance.

I rest my life in probability,
in the ratio between what could have happened,
and what did.

My mind centers itself around “what if's”
and “if only's”
Situations that may have been
if one thing had been changed.

And while you might pride your good luck,
or praise God that you were not fated to be somewhere,
in a certain place,
at a certain time,
I thank history.


I praise my past,
the events that have lined up,
perfectly,
it the one pattern,
the one ,
certain arrangement,
that produces a happy ending.

Or,
at least a happier ending,
one in which all of my self,
remains intact.

But,
I suppose that's just the chance I take.
Continue reading...
I Want to Say
Hannah Southard Sep 2013
I Want to Say
Sometime years from now,
the last grains of sand will drip slowly from my hourglass,
and the clanging sound of the bucket I have kicked will resound across the nation.
But before then I want to say that I existed.

I was there when the world cried for the lives lost,
and I was there when just my family cried,
in the small cramped kitchen of my grandparents house,
waiting for a call from the mainland,
sunk down, resting against the red cabinets.
And at those times I had nothing to say.
The words and letters never came together
to form coherent sentences.
So I kept quiet.

But now I have something to say.
I've finally been able to put together 26 letters to form words.
And I want you to know what I've held in,
over the many years that I've been silent.

I want to tell you about how,
when I was younger, I never wanted to turn 10
because that meant growing up, and growing up mean getting old,
and getting old meant giving up childhood.

I want to tell you about the times when I cried
in the middle of the night
because I was scared about the oblivion that is life and death.

I want to tell you about the dreams I had
when I was little. The ones where my mother left me,
and about how I would shuffle down to her bed,
and crawl in because that's what I did whenever I had a nightmare.
But I never told her what I was actually scared of,
so that she wouldn't worry,
and because I was scared that if I told her,
she might actually leave.

But mostly I want to tell you about how great it was.
We all grew up in a whirlwind mix of tragedy and wonder.
We jumped in pools, and baked in the sun,
and danced through summer storms,
and stayed up late into the night,
sometimes talking, sometimes sitting in silence.
The world moved around us,
and we were swept up in all the wonderful chaos,
we held the hands of angels and devils,
and never let either of them go.
That's what I want to tell you.
Continue reading...
Life, Perfected
Hannah Southard Sep 2012
Life, Perfected
A hole in the ground,
slowly filled,
shovelful by shovelful of damp earth
filling the space around the small mahogany box.
Memories are pushed to the surface,
elevated upwards by the soil.
They think of her,
just a girl, just a girl...
Mary,
that was her name.
She was stubborn,
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary”, they would all tease her jokingly,
and she laughed along,
because she thought it was funny,
and she knew it was true.
Mary,
just a girl, just a girl,
too young to die,
too old to live happily.
She had been part of the world, and one of the people,
she had seen what she wanted to be,
and she wouldn't rest until she reached it.

Long hair,
perfect skin,
flat stomach,
thin legs,
white teeth,
perfect face,
a skinny waist.

Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat
A mantra,
she would repeat it to herself every day
Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat
It gave her something that she mistook for strength, for life, for vitality,
Don't eat,
she would whisper it when she awoke
Don't eat,
she would match it in time with her steps,
Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat.

She saw who she wanted to be,
Her,
she would point her out,
that girl there,
the one on television,
the one who has everything,
the one who was everything,
Her,
the girl who she wanted to be.

But a body can only bend so far before it breaks,
can only take so much weight before it sinks,
can only take so much pressure before it bursts,
and for Mary,
she has broken, sunk, and burst.
Poor Mary,
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,”
oh Mary, what makes your stomach grow?
Now your buried deep, and covered with snow...

She's just a stone now,
and some memories,
no longer a body,
no longer a girl.
Continue reading...
One Day
Hannah Southard May 2021
One Day
My breath is caught in my throat.

It holds back a scream so guttural that if it were to escape it would echo in the mouths of caves halfway across the country.

It keeps in the words that I see tattooed on the backs of my eyelids as they repeat over and over, the ones that get twisted if I focus on them too hard.

It sits next to my heart, wedging itself more tightly the faster it beats as knives twist in the core of my body.

One day it will let go.

One day I will too.

The air will rush out of my lungs for hours forming the words that demand only to be shouted from the highest places my legs can carry me to. And the tears will stream down my cheeks making puddles at my feet reflecting the image of the upside down trees I have climbed to the highest branches of.

And once all the air is gone I’ll float back down, I’ll stare at the stars for hours, thinking just how small the words were the were my whole being, how small my tears compared to the oceans I will cross before I settle somewhere new.

One day I will go.

One day you will too.
Continue reading...
Oxygen
Hannah Southard Oct 2012
Oxygen
Breathe in,
breathe out,
there,
you have just successfully converted oxygen into carbon dioxide,
you have been productive,
you have done enough today to give the trees a job,
like a tired mother,
they go around un-doing everything you've worked so *******,
In,
out,
muscles relaxing,
tension releasing,
carbon dioxide expelled,
diluted by the oxygen,
in,
out,
lungs burning,
legs aching,
quick,
sharp,
inoutinoutinout,
hands on hips,
bent at the waist,
a long red ribbon laying broken at your feet,
inoutin out in  out   in    out,
calming,
slowing until it is normal again,
in,
o-,
your breathe catches,
heart beating faster,
eyes locked,
a great love epic in the making,
the carbon dioxide sitting in your lungs waiting for you to remember to release it,
screaming lungs silenced by a pounding heart,
insides so loud,
outsides completely silent.
OUT,
in,
out,
lungs comforted,
heart calmed by the brain,
continue walking,
normal,
in,
out,
the trees following behind you,
fixing all the air you have ruined,
and giving it back to you, once again.
Continue reading...
Peace
Hannah Southard May 2013
Peace
Phased only by the
Evil
Around us.
Crying out for change with
Eager hearts and eyes.
Continue reading...
Seaside
Hannah Southard Apr 2015
Seaside
Do not fear the lion breath. Let your cheeks sting with the power of it, let the tears drip from your eyes as the cold whips across your face. Feel it rush across your bare arms and legs, across your torso, your soul. Breathe it in, deeply, the salt burning as it surges into your lungs, slowly spreading throughout your body, filling every empty space.

Do not fear the lion breath. As you look into the deep dark mouth of the beast, white froth swirling on its surface. Do not flinch when its echoing roars crash upon the shoreline, breaking against shattered but smooth pieces of earth. Instead, listen closer for the purring it makes as it recedes back into itself, pulling at your toes, urging you to follow.

Do not fear the lion breath. Jump into the mouth of the beast, let the cold rush over your head, feel the waves at their birth below the surface. Let it wrap its overwhelming power around your arms and legs, around your torso, your soul. Let it into your mind, replace your thoughts, memories, everything you’ve known to be real. Replace it all with cold truth. Reset your mind the way we do clocks after the power fails us and we are left in the dark. Shock your heat into beating a new rhythm, in time with the crashing of waves and the roaring of beasts.

So do not fear the lion breath. Feel the sting strike your skin, hear the roaring song, smell the salty spray. If it rips the tears from your eyes, let them mix with the sea water which drips from your hair, rivulets rolling off your body. Let the salt drip down your arms and legs, down your torso, your soul. Leave behind you a puddle, shed like the skin of a snake. Sit beside the roaring beast, new, heart beating in time with the waves, breathing with the wind.
#fear #water #ocean #acceptance
Continue reading...
Soft
Hannah Southard Dec 2017
Soft
Something inside of me is broken.
Some piece of the machine has cracked, the gears in my mind have come to a stop, rust has begun to collect.
Some days it feels like I might be dying, or that I may already be  dead.
A numbness creeps into the spaces between my fingers and toes, spreading slowly up my arms and legs, wrapping itself around my middle like a snake, squeezing the life out of my lungs, the last of my air pushed out from between my quivering lips trying to form the words to scream for help.
I used to think that I was strong, powerful, mighty, but I’ve come crashing down in a ruin that would put Rome to shame.
The pieces of who I thought I wanted to be have collected around my feet, crumbling so severely that they blend in with the dirt beneath me.
I have been left naked, without any sense of self, afraid to look down and see what scars people may have carved into my two-toned frame.
I’ve tried to be so many people recently that I’m not sure I could pick my own mind out of a crowd.
My thoughts revolve around people and places that I want to reach for, but my heart holds my hands at my sides like a straight jacket, doing all it can to not be torn apart before it has a chance to find a way to pull itself together again.
The blood in my veins has begun to flow red hot and ice cold at the same time, two separate types of burning which should balance out but instead have learned to coexist.
I want to slice open my veins, pour out the two streams, mix them into a lukewarm state of nonexistence, so that maybe I can feel something somewhere in the middle of two extremes.
I am scared.
I feel alone in a crowded room.
I crave attention but shy away from the light.
I like the shadows.
I like the darkness.
Sometimes with a body lying next to me, but oftentimes with only blankets to pull closer.
I like to feel protected but I hate that I haven’t yet figured out how to protect myself.
I haven’t figured out how to give myself over to a person, to trust that they’ll give me back, to learn how to take myself back.
I haven’t figured out how to not be serious.
How not to love with everything.
How not to feel pain when everything is not what I get in return.
I want to learn how to feel any emotion except sad.
To be able to touch my own body and feel more love than in the fingers of someone else, as they trace over the skin I’m still tracing myself.
There is an incomplete self-portrait in my brain that I have been relying on others to finish instead of transforming the mangled pieces with my own hands, letting my fingertips smudge out the harsh lines to become soft.
Soft is how I want to feel.
Soft, like the sand underneath the smooth stones and sharp shells by the ocean.
I want to blend myself into oblivion, until I am nothing more than the idea of a body, until only my mind remains, and I learn that soft is not weak. Soft is powerful. And neither is something to be afraid of.
Continue reading...
The Clipboard
Hannah Southard Oct 2012
The Clipboard
A brown clipboard holding some sheets of paper.
Names,
lists of them all signed perfectly
with the black ball-point pen dangling from a chain off the side.
Him,
a family member, one who I had respect for.
Me,
seven years old
told to wait outside on the porch while he talked to my mother.
A bumper sticker,
two people holding hands accompanied by a slogan,
“Marriage” it said,
“one man,
one woman”.

I was too young then to understand,
maybe I am still too young to understand,
all I knew then is that my uncle asked my mother to sign something,
war declaration for all I knew,
and I guess it was in a way,
a war against people,
and a war against choice.

My mother did not sign the paper,
the one with all the names,
one slot on the clipboard left blank for the next person to choose to pick up the pen,
that black ball-point pen,
and to sign their name,
slowly,
perfectly,
signing away a life,
but not their life,
they would go on, and on, and on,
but signing away another's life,
someone they would never meet,
someone they would never know,
but someone they already disliked.
Why?

If that clipboard were given to me now,
I would be like my mother,
strong in my determination not to scribble my own messy name underneath the list of others,
strong in my determination not to sign away someone else's life,
someone else's happiness,
someone else's future.
Continue reading...
The End
Hannah Southard Sep 2012
The End
Slowly,
we are all going insane,
slowly, but surely, we are all slipping down the same path,
some pushed to the brink sooner than others,
some farther behind.
We all trudge towards our doom,
funneled and guided to the right area
by the hands of our society.

The end has been predicted many times,
in different ways, by different people:
many a stray asteroid has been foretold,
one that will sink it's rocky teeth into the earth,
and make it explode.

It seems like the end may finally be coming,
people have been pushed so far, that they have cracked.
Their minds have broken,
their thoughts have jumbled,
they don't know who they are.

They are zombies,
literally and figuratively.
Zombies.
The ones who have been consumed by society
and spit back out again,
forced to live in a world that they want no part of,
so they attack,
and,
much like the zombies from storybooks,
they have this strange appetite,
that is full of a thirst for others.

These people care not for the world,
or their own bodies even,
no, they don't care.
They rip themselves apart,
tear into their own flesh,
and escape reality,
finally,
after succumbing to their fate.

The world,
pushed against unseen boundaries,
forced to the brink of insanity,
has finally spilled over,
and now,
we must fight the zombies
inside ourselves.
Continue reading...
The Lonely Road
Hannah Southard Jan 2013
The Lonely Road
No angels there to guide you,
you must do it on your own,
with no one there beside you,
you must brave the dark alone.

No demons there to hurt you,
only fears get in your way,
they creep around inside you,
they are yours alone to slay.

No mother there to help you,
no father to hold your hand,
as through the hourglass of life,
drip your memories as sand.
Continue reading...
To the future, with love
Hannah Southard May 2021
To the future, with love
To the days where the sun has not yet risen and the waves have not come crashing to the shore, in my mind you are shining with gold and flickering in the opalescent glow of hope.

You are both incredibly large and shockingly tiny. You are everything and more just outside the reach of my outstretched arms and I run to you eyes closed with reckless abandon.

You are the softest place to rest while I look back at the tears I shed in anticipation of your coming and to laugh at how they could fill oceans and streams to float on and on towards the every fainter horizon oh solid land.

I hope you come both quickly and as slowly as the stars circle the velvet black sky where no light reaches. You are the single point each of the tangled yarns I wade through now finally point towards.

You are terrifying.

But so am I.
Continue reading...
Watermark
Hannah Southard Sep 2012
Watermark
The tides have fallen,
but the waters keep rising,
choking out the remaining few who struggled to retain their homes.
Shotgun houses,
long abandoned when the levees broke,
and the ocean crashed through the streets,
leaving a wake of more than just sand.

X's
marks on doors,
spray-painted numbers depicting the body count,
telling you if it was safe to go inside,
if you will be poisoned by gases,
or memories.

Volunteers,
thousands of them,
rushed to the scene,
quick, for their moment in the spotlight,
while the house were still damp,
helpful only in the attraction they brought with them,
where are they now?
Now that the houses and the people have dried themselves off,
where are they?
Those who lost nothing,
those who have everything,
where are they?

Out of sight,
out of mind,
out of the way,
locked away,
a secret,
kept tight,
except for the occasional whisper of the waves.

New Orleans,
a broken city,
still fractured,
held together by hope,
and help,
from the few who still venture down
to help put the pieces back together.
The select few
who still care
about the forgotten city,
the cracked town,
a city that's been down on its knees for seven years.
Continue reading...
Why I'm Scared
Hannah Southard Jan 2013
Why I'm Scared
To tell you the truth,
I'm terrified,
of life
of love
of tomorrow
of next week
of the rest if forever.

Everyday my hands shake,
my heart pounds,
my legs buckle at the knees

Questions about my future
elicit trembling statements,
inquires into my love life
make me shake,
and making plans
causes my hands to sweat

Tomorrow is so uncertain,
what we know,
who we love,
may never exist beyond this point,
our illusion of life
is more fragile that the smallest flower
our feelings of control
are smoke and dust
and the idea of eternity
is greater than any of us.

And I am scared.
Continue reading...

— The End —