Madisen Kuhn: Favorites

Oct 2021 Madisen Kuhn

Rea

i'm sitting on a purple bus, swaying back and forth and
didn't my mother used to rock me to sleep like this?
i'm going back to a dorm room with a twin-sized bed and,
at the age of five, wasn't my bed this small?
because you see, things change but not really.
the parts of our past just fall into different molds
and take on new purposes.
they run underneath every aspect of our lives,
containing bones and bruises and memories,
like catacombs resting in our corpus callosum.
you'll recognize the feeling like
it's from a different lifetime, a different reality.
but it's yours, it always has been.

written on a bus 7:09pm

#writing #poem #poetry #memories #childhood

Apr 2019 Madisen Kuhn

Embers

Apr 2019 Madisen Kuhn

Ian

Embers

I can still remember.

That burning feeling of inspiration, bubbling up through my body.
It dominated me, defined me, led me to believe that I was my own hero.
A protagonist on a quest, a road to travel on, certainty in my bones.
Driven by love through the narration of my world, my story.
Words overflowed from my heart.
Staining the tracks, pages, and lilies of my life with my fire.
Every heartbeat resounded like the clanging of a tower's bells.
Each ring dictating time, order, purpose, place.

I can still remember.

The lingering taste of coffee on my tongue, my face sore from smiling.
Hours spent talking and listening.
The content of my life summarized like chapters of a book.
The way my heart vaulted when your eyes met mine.
It was like the moon pulling at the tides.
Giving the waves motion and momentum.
So I spilled my ink and blood, writing you into the story.

I can still remember.

What it was like when it was over.
I hadn't realized I had been living in a cell.
Scrawling my visions of the world onto every inch of those four walls.
Diagrams and diatribes, the things I considered to be myself.
Going mad in the most wonderful fashion.
As I left I saw them for what they were.
Mosaics and memorials.
Poison and poetry.
The passionate magic of first and finals, the ****** taste of loss.
But ****, it was beautiful all the same.

I can still remember.

What it felt like to move on.
The taste of freedom and fresh air, an urge to defy what was.
And become something more again.
But suddenly, the bleeding in my heart slowed.
The resounding clangs of my inner bells softly faded.
It took years,
But one day I reached inside myself
Expecting to feel the fire burning inside me.

I can still remember.

The dread that came with the lack of heat.
The soul of myself, the definition of me as the hero.
Was only embers now.
The easy numbness that washed over me.
The determination and inspiration that was me had left.
I was broken, as I always was.
But I no longer knew myself as beautiful.
I was not a protagonist.
I had written myself out of my own story, slowly but surely.
There was no quest, no journey, no one to save or be saved by.
Just whatever I have become.

I hope one day to remember.

My clumsy and earnest return to form.
When my heart again bled ink and crackled with flame.

#introspection #love #loss #life #inspiration

Sep 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Ragdoll

Sep 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Dean Eastmond

Ragdoll

you will break the dawn
like eggshells,
cracked like my promise
and I will take the needle,
carefully knit your battle wounds together
with stories from inside
candles flamed kisses.
I will plaid metaphor and memory together
until you are the rag-doll
someone promised to fix.

Sep 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Limb Perimeters

Sep 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Dean Eastmond

Limb Perimeters

I don't cry about it now.

but when he held me at the waist
I felt paper cuts carve his hands,
saw the broken glass on each side
of my "you look like a girl" hips
slice him open.

He said they looked like wings,
but where are the angels
when I slump over
bathroom floors,
with bent knees and
shattered promises?

Aug 2014 Madisen Kuhn

I’ll always remember you

Aug 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Chris

I’ll always remember you

I remember every metaphor I used for you.
It’s beautiful how quickly I ran out.
It was just so difficult to describe
a forest at the bottom of an ocean on fire.
You were soft,
I was quiet.
I remember every park bench,
every broken sidewalk,
every open sky.
It was so whole.
I remember breathing,
and the lovely amount of effort it required.
I hope you do too.
They say writers remember the important things;
I say they are liars.
I remember you wore a purple flannel
the first time I saw you,
even though it isn’t your favorite colour.
I remember that you take your coffee black,
and your tea with plenty of honey.
I remember the way your eyes changed colour
based on the weather,
and the way you looked at the sky,
like it was endless.
You were endless.
I remember everything you taught me.

They say writers remember the important things;
I remember you.

Aug 2014 Madisen Kuhn

far.

Aug 2014 Madisen Kuhn

Chris

far.

I fell out of love with the bottom half of the sky today.
It reminded me of home.
I've grown weak carrying a half splintered heart.
It only floats on the third Wednesday of the month
and holidays that start with "yesterday."
It's all the same.
I'd rather drown.
I think home is where you don't feel so alone.
I've tried, you know.
It's all the same.
I've left two voicemails for whoever lives here now.
I think they're sorry they're so empty.
It's just been so quiet lately.
I am tired,
and so very far from home.