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 Dec 2019 Melissa S
Sjr1000
She passed out
between the Game Makers
At
The Rancheria's casino
I was playing Bonus Deuces Wild
She was playing a penny a line

Hitting five of a kind on the first play in the continuum
She acknowledged my luck
Then lay her head down between the machines
as if looking for something
She could not find

Time passed
Banging along
Credits up and credits down
I asked her if she needed help
She was comatose
Remembered it far later
Her bottom gum was pink,
Where her teeth
Should have been

We laid her down
I held her head
I forgot 17 years of CPR training
I remembered it later

Her breath would stop
Then sputter back to life
Life trying to find away

Help arrived after a while
Disorganized for a while
and ill prepared
for an establishment frequented with old people and another addict
They
worked hard at it
got the hang of it
brought her back to life several times

It didn't matter
Emily dressed in black leotards
Balancing a drink tray
told me about her a while later
She had been alone
grieving,
an anyuerism
She died.

My CPR
wouldn't have mattered

But before I left that afternoon
I told Security
I didn't mean to be crass or crude
Or
sacrilegious.

But could he please push the button
To get my ticket
I had money in that machine

He said to me
I guess we're all lucky today

I know what he means
heading out the doors
To the sun and the winds.
 Dec 2019 Melissa S
Nat Lipstadt
yes, only the paper will listen when
called upon
for what is a clean sheet but only our reflection
human

it:
crinkles
wrinkles
folds and bends
yellows with old age,
can always be changed
and always constant if unaltered

it:
speaks in words
embraced with lip kisses
can be cherished
can be destroyed
ashes to ashes
just like a human

print this poem:
place it in your everyday purse
of all things valued, kept upon
your person, close by
for comfort
for reflection
amidst the haste

the paper preserves:
your glory
your memory
your secreted confessions,
an exposure of your nakedness
your innermost outermost

the paper is skin:
can be scarred
held close by
shelved to be avoided
shed cells, store cells,
can be blood stained
can keep lipstick witness
dry tears, elicit tears

when we pass:
we leave behind
progeny
objects of valuable
meaningful to our unique
and papers

papers:
of legitimacy
of illegitimacy
of recollections
future predictions
remnants scraps
full books
our product
on this earth

the paper always listens,
patiently awaits our impatience
our truest friend, confidante
who can be confidently be trusted to
reveal our confidences

the clean sheet listens
as we part with thoughts
that can only be entrusted
to ourselves, our limbs
our entirety castoff
our entirety sustained


3:47am 11/29/19
 Dec 2019 Melissa S
v V v
In the summer when I was 10
I won my first trophy,
a time when kids earned them
and others went without.

I cradled it in my hands like
the corpse of a baby rabbit,
my sweaty palms staining
the corrugated copper torso.

Father drove us home
in an overwhelming silence
while I sat in the back
with my trophy,
thinking about how
Paul's father twirled
him about in celebration.

I'd never seen a father
hug a son before,
it was strange and alien
in the world I knew,

hell I'd never seen
a mother hug a son,
or even a father hug
a mother for that matter.

The years would bring
many more trophies
and much more silence,

all of which now fills
a worn and tattered
box in my garage,

but leaves me with a
smothering emptiness
whenever I wonder why
I'm so terrified of
being loved.
 Dec 2019 Melissa S
v V v
The blue is the middle.
The battle.
The anti coherent existence.

I’m supposed to watch it from a distance,
separate myself through persistence.

I am unable.

The Blue is my watershed, and loud,
Red left and Green right war at the peak
while the pull from the left is strong.
A rolling storm cloud thick from behind,
I look toward the Green, for the light,
to your face, and the reflection in
your eyes tells me what I already know.

It is gaining.
I cannot escape it.

A tidal wave,
an avalanche,
the day before the flu.
The first pang of a kidney stone.
That moment between banging
your knee on a desk and the arrival
of the pain.

A slight delay but
most definitely inevitable.

I am not supposed to be IT.

The darkness is its own entity.

IT
is of itself and not me,

But it tells me it is me
and it is quite convincing.

Without further progress
I am convinced I'll need an exorcism.
Though it seems to be a good idea, it hasn't quite worked for me yet.
  https://blog.bulletproof.com/heart-rate-variability-training/
 Dec 2019 Melissa S
Carlo C Gomez
"Every survivor of ****** assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported."

Rainwater of
the Elysian fields,
you assuredly do
like to drown your winged heroines?
You write them as strange
bitter narratives,
spurious to the calling
or as a bit of
bloodletting go.

The history formed around either
her breaking at the seams
upon the witching hour,
and her own home village
pillaging her claims
in the bonfire;
Or the arcane notion
no woman shall give testimony
against a neighbor
on the occasion he's a man.

Yes, she cried 'no' at the temple gate
Yes, she repeated such entreaties
But she'd also been into the ale
and wore an overtly
fetching carousal dress
you incensed.
Let her dam break
Let her try and flood us over
you mocked.
She was only a wayfaring angel
one reckless bird of passage
What type of wounds
could she inflict?

How easily you lost sight
of her will & halo
becoming stronger than fright.
Down she poured in antipathy,
until covering your gaping mouth!
It wasn't rain that killed you,
for you were the rain,
it was her blood calling out
that finally did you in...
When it comes to ****** assault and/or harassment, a woman's voice needs to be listened to and believed.

Inspired by the poem "Dark Sky, One Star," by fellow HP writer Ashly Kocher.
 Dec 2019 Melissa S
Carlo C Gomez
Madame Fury
The Sun
Has dropped
Her lawsuit
And settled with the Moon

Tomorrow
She'll pique and threaten
Once more
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