Leah Rae

Leah Rae Aug 2013

I'm A Suicide Bomb.
A Nuclear Explosion Of Unexplainable Inadequate Ambition.
A Hand Granade, Pull My Pin And  Watch Me Self Destruct.
A Land Mine Beneath Seven Inches Of Soil, Tensed Like Piano Wire, Ready To Sing Under Pressure. Ready To Scream.
Genocide Of My Own Veins. Pull Them One By One, Out Of Their Homes And Send Them Off To Interment Camps, Built To Hold The Blood Of A Body That Only Betrays Me.
I'm Holding Each Limb Hostage, Each Finger A Prisoner Of War, Every Fingertip A Monument Where Everyone I Have Ever Loved Will Mourn The Tragedy Of My Own Destruction.
Gas Masked And Gagging, They Will Always Ask Why I Did It.
A Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Diagnoses To Give Them Some Closure. I

Know They Didn't Understand The War I Was Waging Beneath My Ribs.

Waking Every Morning, Clawing My Way Through The Wreckage, With Knees And Palms Painted Filthy Black, Ears Ringing, Like The Sound Of A Thousand Dead Voices Vibrating,

I Have To Tell Myself It Must Be Happening For A Reason.
I've Been Wearing A Kevlar Vest Made Of Lies, White Ones, Stained Red.
A Purpose Born Inside Me, I Have To Ask How Much Longer Must I Keep Running?
I Have To Believe The God You Pray To, Prays To Someone Like Me, Because Who Else Would Declare War On This Kind Of Humanity.

Every Day Is A Battle, Every Aching Moment Is A Last Attempt At Redemption,
Every Bone In This Body Is A Bayonet Aimed To Splint Apart My Skeleton.
This Isn't A War Anymore.
This Is Terrorism.
Terrorized My Paper Thin Skin,
Handed Me Black & Blue ink, and Told Me To Write Out My Surrender On My Skin, Like Bruises

Branded,
Wrapped In Kelodial Bandages.

I Am Damage.

I Am Destruction.

I Am Savage.

I Am. Terrified.

My Home Is A War Zone, Scabbed Over And Still Bleeding, No Where Is Safe, Not Even Inside My Own Skull.
I Am Eyelid Explosions And Neplam, Burning One Hundred Thousand Degrees Above My Own Boiling Point.

An Open Wound. Bullet Bomb Shell, Left With More Holes Than Whole.

Had Spent 6 Years On This Planet, 2,190 Days Too  Short To Understand What It Meant To Watch Twin Towers Fall.
They Said The Word Attack.
Lived Eleven More Years In This Body, In An Existence That Seems To Only Be Fighting Against It's Own Skin, Cutting It Into Pieces, Cutting Corners, Cutting Edges, Looking For Answers Beneath Whatever Remains Of Me.

How Can You Win A Battle When The Only One You Are Fighting Is Yourself?

I Think My Violet Eyes And Indigo Insides Believed In A Peace Treaty, But I Have Shrapnel Wedged So Deeply Inside Me, That It's Become Difficult To Understand Existing Without It.

How Do I Fight An Invisible Enemy, With Kerosene Lips And Matches For Fingertips?

I Am A Solider.
There Was A Draft And It Consisted Of A Single Six Digit Number That Matched My Birthday,
Like A Bad Joke,
I Can't Remember When It Began, All I Know Is That I Haven't Lived in A Time Without Bloodshed.

Mental Illness Runs In My Family,
A Weapon Of Mass Destruction,
Built Into This Blood,
O Positive,
Unsure,
Yet AB Negative
Of Where It Will Take Me,
Except To Live A Life Wondering If I'll Catch The Family Flu,
They Call This Biological Ware fare.

How Do We Wash The Blood Out Of Our Own Genes?

Us. The Sick Of Soul, The Diseases And Dying, The Psychosomatic, Sociopathic, Undiagnosed And Overmedicated,

Must Tell Ourselves

That Atleast Suicide Bombers..

Die For Something.

Leah Rae Jul 2013

No Note

If You Were To Ask Her..
She Would Tell You It Wasn’t A Suicide Attempt .
She’d Say Her Blue Lips And Limp Limbs Were Just A Side Effect Of The Pills.
Like An Entire Bottle Of Oxy-Cotton Would Make Her Chase That High Even Higher,
It Was Hard Enough Learning To Walk On Shattered Souls.
She Was Trying To Levitate.
Hover Above The Ground, She Was Begging The Sunrise To Call Her Skyward.
Body Wrapped In Shades Of Ultra-Violet,
Scalding Cobalt,
Empty Indigo,
The Perfect Skylight Shade,
The Taste of Ocean Waters,
She Was Trying To Drowning All Her Those Scars Inside Of It.
Swallowing Them,

Some Beautiful Disaster.

She’ll Tell You It Was An Accident.

That Her Body Had Laid Down Beside Me.
Rested.
Heavy Hearted And Empty.
Between One And Two AM, Sixty Minutes Of Silence Between Us, I’ll Promise You
I Was Just A Child Then.
All I Knew Was That I Couldn't Sleep Without Her, She Had Fed Me Plates Full Of Co-Dependency, Curled Tight Around Me, Told Me It Was Her And I Against This World.

I Believed This.

Her Addiction Was Chasing Her.
Angry.
Like A Storm.
She Was Self Medicating, Hiding Under Box springs, And Bed Sheets, Inside The Basement Of Her Own Depression. She Had Pulled Me Through Rooms Filled With Lost Eyes, Laced Fingers With Enough Hands,
Repeated The Serenity Prayer So Many Times, It Was Stitched Into My Cerebellum.

I Was Raised in The Play Rooms Of Churches, On Sunday Night, Narcotics Anonymous Meetings, A Novocain Numbness To The Same Voices, On Burnt Coffee And Stale Oatmeal Cookies, Sponsors And Sobriety Chips, Seven Days Sober, With Some Applause.

They Told Us To Always Keep Coming Back.
That It Works If You Work It,
If You Pulverize It, Break it Down, Devour It. And Destroy It.
And To Always Destroy What Destroys You.
So She Was Tearing Her Own Body Limb From Limb, Separated Skin And Bone, Shedding Her Skeleton.

My Mother Would Tell You She Had Wrapped Her Body Around Me.
Half Human, And Almost Gone.
I’d Tell You He Had Woken Us Up Too Early In The Morning, Somewhere Between The Bleakness Of Dusk And Dawn, And They Had Taken Us To The Hospital.
The Smell Of Bleach And Newborn Babies,
Pumped Her Stomach, Pulling Out Every Ounce Of Self Depravity She Had Tucked Inside Of Herself.

If You Were To Ask Her, She Would Tell You It Wasn’t What It Looked Like.

But I’d Tell You She Had Overdosed On Self Destruction, Smothered By The Box She Had Trapped Herself In.

And I’d Tell You She Had Laid Down Beside Me.
Allowing Herself To Leave Me, Always So Alone.
So Know This Destruction By Name, Press It Against My Palms, And Wrap Me In This Honesty. Baptize Me In This Salt Water, Sting My Open Wounds, My Burned Flesh, Like Branded Skin,
Scared For The Rest Of This Eternity.

I’d Tell You She Hadn’t Left A Suicide Note.
Didn’t Need To.
Just Remember What Kind Of Depravity She Had Written Out, Spelled Each Stanza On The Bed sheets Between Us, When Mommy Fell Asleep Beside Me That Night.

I’d Tell You That I Could Have Woken Up Beside Her The Next Morning. And She Wouldn’t Have Been There.

Taken, Savagely, In The Middle Of The Night.

At Six Years Young, Could Have Threaded My Fingers Into Her Hair, And Begged Her To Wake Up.

I’d Tell You She Wouldn't Have Been Able To.

She’d Tell You, Atleast She Had.

I apologize for the capitalization. This piece is hyper-personal and I hope my message is clear, and I hope it resonates.

Leah Rae Jul 2013

Poetry Prescription

The Warning Label On This Brand Of Poetry,
Must Read
“Keep Out Of The Reach Of Children”
Because It Seems Like An Age Requirement Is Required To Open My Mouth Here.

You See, I Was Born And Raised In The Hallways Of This Body,
Theres A Recollection Of Every Year Of My Growth, On Each Edge Of This Skin, Like A Story Book, Read Me Like A Map,
And Tell Me
In My Short Seventeen Years Of Life, If I've Seen Enough Lifetimes Yet.

If I Don’t Speak With Enough Dignity, Or Grit, Or Sometimes - Just Bared Jawed, Teeth Snapping, Hell Fire.
Tell Me, If My Lips Can’t Curl Into The Same Kind Of Snarl Yours Can,
Or If My Blood Stream Isn't Pumping The Same Mixture Of Insalvageable Sudden Sacrificial Suicidal Need.
I've Gotten Welcomed Into Enough Rooms, Warmed Up Mics Until They Were Hot Enough To Burn My Lips, And I Keep Coming Back.
If I Wasn't Addicted To This Stage, Like Some Sort Of Divinity Gone Wrong, If I Can’t Remember What It Feels Like To Not Need Anymore.

Tell Me I’m Not A Poet.

I’m Less Than Six Months Away From My Eighteenth Birthday.
As If Something Inside My Bones Will Change Between Then, And Now, As if The Home Of My Body Will Suddenly Be Capable Of Carrying More, If Now That I Can Smoke My Lungs Black, Marlboro Cigarette Shaped Scar Burns, Onto The Backs Of My Hands, If The Ability To Buy ****, Or Tattoo Every Inch Of Exposed Skin,
Would Make Me Any More Of An Adult.

You Better Hope I Never Become One.
It’ll Be A Day I Will Chase In The Opposite Direction,
Don’t Say I’m Running From It.

So No, I Don’t Want To Grow Up.
This Peter Pan, Neverland, Is More Honest Than You Will Ever Realize.
Chase Me.
Catch This If You Can.
I Won’t Write Poetry About Every Ounce of My Undiscovered Tragedy,
I’ll Remind You
That My Seventeen Years Have Gifted Me With Sweet Suffering, Like a Character Building Beauty,
But I’ll Be The First To Tell You That
Me,
And This World Don’t Know One Another Too Well Yet.

So I’ve Got A Long Time, To Write Out My Best Stories, Pull Them, From Inside The Depths Of This Monstrosity, And Give Them Life.
One For Mother’s **** Addiction.
Two For Her No Note Suicide Attempt,
Three For Her Blue Lips When I Woke Up Beside Her,
Four For The Way My Father Has Never Given Up On Me,
Five For Scars I Shouldn't Have Given Myself,
Six For The Way I’m Still Here In Front Of You,
And
Seven For The Story I Haven’t Told Yet.

So Know I Am Seen, And Also Heard.
I've Got A Lot Of More Speaking To Do.
This Must Mean,
I’m Not Finished Yet.

Pop Off The Cap Of This Prescription Bottle,
Side Effects Include
Sudden Shaking,
Peel Back The Warning Label,
When They Said “Keep Out Of The Reach of Children”

They Must Have Been Talking About You.

sorry about the capitalization! I was really inspired after attending an all ages poetry slam tonight. Hope this resonates.

Leah Rae Jul 2013

My Muse

Shes been waking me up in the middle of the night lately.
She pulls my hair in the early hours of the morning, beats the sleep out of me, like an angry sibling, all elbows and knees, a halo of messy hair, all because she needs to thread her fingers into mine, and tell me the stars are calling her home, calling her skyward.

And I laugh at her.

Because she doesn't understand the science of astrology or how the atoms that make up her being, are that of stars, and all she has to do is close her eyes to be home.

She hates when I laugh at her.

She waits restlessly, with hands bent tight around pens with black and blue ink, she begs me to give the paper bruises.
But I tell her I'm too busy.
Push her away, out of me, and back into herself.

She hates being alone.

She smiles at me, and brings me indigo flower beds and lilacs to rest my head on.
Shes been bending over backwards, writing our initials in the sand for so long now, fingers tripping over one another in the beaches of sand,
sand once held in hour glasses,
measuring out how many seconds and hours, days and weeks we have left with one another.

She tells me I am wasting this youth that I have, on dollar bills and proper sleeping habits.

She says artists don't need sleep.

She pulls me, sideways out of myself and tells me that she's leaving.

She wears red lipstick and climbs into the back of a big yellow cab, and writes a song about it. Sings it to me, when she slams the door.

She says I didn't appreciate her.

She just doesn't understand that the dust in my skeleton is shuddering, quaking, breathing and breaking.
Begging to be stirred up, swallowed down, and to devour something new.
She doesn't understand that I am in love with her, and the thousands of intricate patterns her fingertips could trace on blank canvases.

She has no idea that I will be irrevocably lost without her, with no map to guide me, or guide to find me.

She doesn't know that without her, I am nothing.

She doesn't know that I need her.

Leah Rae Jun 2013

Break a leg.

There Is Something Impossibly Impulsive About The Body We Wore.
Like A Costume On Stage, Every Change Felt Like A Quick One.
We Were Ripping Layers Of Cotton and Silk, Away.
Never Naked, Just Feeling Like Maybe You Might Of Left With A Little Less Than What You Came With.

We Stood Back-lit, Like Stage Props.
Held Frozen By Spot Lights, Unable To Reach Out And Touch Each Other.
Afraid.
Like We Might Break One Another.

The Ridged Lines, Hard Pallor Skeleton, Like Road maps, Through Broadway, And The Whites Of Our Eyes.
We Were A Balcony Away, Dusty Velvet And Aged Satin.
Palms Prints, Like Sheer Silk Gloves, Elbow Deep In Our Own Self Obsession, A Hallway Of Mirrors, One Thousand Watt Bulbs.
A Cast And Crew of Only You.

We’d Turn Down The House Lights, Dim The Emptiness Behind Our Eyelids, A Box Office Value, Of The Number Of Souls You Couldn't Keep Captive.
Always Realizing You Were Alone, An Underage Tragedy, Ad Libbing Our Way Through The Only Auditions That Mattered, The Ones We Needed To Make Something More Of The Masks We Wore.

There’d Be A Black Out, Long Enough For You To Get Your Bearings.
Realize This All Didn't Have To Be An Act.

There Would Always Be Red Glowing Exit Signs, Easy Outs.
But We’d Learn That You Can’t Be The Understudy In Your Own Life.
There Would Be The Curtain, A Dozen Gold Tassels, To Raise.

Break The Fourth Wall, And Divide Your Insides Apart.
Draw A Line, A Call For Places, A Dress Rehearsal, A Last Chance To Get This Right.

You’d Come To The Sound Stage Reaction.
You’re More Than A Performance.
A No Longer Tried And True Type Cast.

Please Take A Bow, Darling.

Make This Stage Worthy, Standing Ovation,

Say It.
Over rehearsed,
Side Scripted Lines,

Welcome To The Masquerade.

Leah Rae May 2013

Standardized Test Preparation

I Have This New Problem.
This New Self Crippling.
Self Doubt.
Slithering It's Way Inside Me.
You See I Have This New Problem.
This New
Tick,
Tick,
Tick
This New Something - Standing Sidewise In The Back Of My Mind, That Makes Me Insane.

I
N
S
A
N
E
Instability Like Crumbling Cinderblocks.
Convinced That My Muse Will Leave Me.
Get Fed Up With My Messy Bedroom And 5 Hour A Night Sleep Schedule. Decide I Don't Appreciate Her Enough. She'd Write A Love Song About Leaving Me. The Red Lipstick She'd Wear And Yellow Cab That Would Take Her Away.

Nauseous.
Like Sick To My Stomach.
Like Dizzyingly Drowsy, Like Taking Four Hour Naps Between Work, School, Homework,
And This Thing Called Obligation,
This Thing Called Obligation,
This Thing Called Obligation.
Obligated To Myself.

Redefined By A Number On A Score Sheet, Let it Tell Me I Wasn't Worth The Effort Anymore.

Let It Tell Me To Give Up.
Let It Wake Me Up At 3 am To Write This.

Sanity, Like The Thing I'm Sure I Must Have Misplaced.
Like Anxiety.
Like This Inability To Stop Eating Myself Alive, Separating Fingertip From Skin, Biting Down To The Quick, So Everything I Touch, Hurts Me.

Like Telling Myself No.
Like Staying Awake Seventeen Hours, And Seventeen Assignments Later, Like Seventeen Years Of This.

Like Enough Already.

** I Said Enough.

Leah Rae May 2013

Pancakes

There Is A Reason ihop Is Open 24 Hours A Day.

It's Like A MmMmMm. Pancakes!
Like A Mouth Watering & The Sound Of Fork Scraping Plate, Kind Of Morning, Isn't It?

Sunny Saturday Morning In April, With NPR Playing Over The Radio, And The Sound Of Bacon Sizzling, Kind Of Morning.

Take It From Me.
Watched A Heavy Hearted Seventeen Year Old Sister, Ask For Breakfast Ar Midnight, And The Hours Spent Talking Away Her Heart Ache With Mom Was Just A Side Effect Of The Full Stomach.

Stumble Into This.
With Bloodshot Eyes, And Ripped Up Jeans, 5am And Hung Over.
The Waitress Will Always Take Care Of You.
It's Like Her Duty, Along Side Taking Orders And Refilling Empty Coke Glasses, She'll Serve You
Blackberry,
Blueberry,
Chocolate Chip,
Strawberry Strung,
Bananas,
And Whip Cream Shaped Like A Smiley Face,
Without Any Questions Asked.

Pancakes Are The Breakfast Of Champions. So You Remember This. Your Fork And Knife Battle Weapon, Ready To Turn This 15 Minute Meal Into A Valiant Reawakening.
And Remember You Are King Today.

Staff And Stone, And No One Can Destroy You.
Eat Up, And Be Strong.
Smile.
I Dare You.
Lick Your Fingers, And Ask For Seconds.
This Is Life, And Asking For Another Helping Has Never Been A Bad Thing.

Bite Your Tongue, Drink Back This Moment. I'd Ask You To Taste It, If Your Mouths Weren't Already Full.

I Know, There Will Be Tequila &Wine; Bottles You'll Try To Drown Yourself In.
But I've Learned Something Sticky Sweet Seems To Heal The Broken Edges Just A Little Better.

Daddy Always Said There Was A Reason The Light On The 'Waffle House' Sign Never Went Out. A Warm Plate & A Smile Is Sometimes All You Need To Make A Place Home.

The Next Time You Get Offered Pancakes, Consider It A Token Of Appreciation.
Always Say Yes.
Even If You're Not Hungry.
Take A Bite. You Won't Regret It.
I Promise.