Hello PoetryVoting

Vote

Voting-Boards

Home

HomeFollowingInboxNotifications

Read

ReadLiftedFeedsHeartedHistoryMy poemsNew poem

Explore

ExploreOrbitsWordsTagsClassics
Log in
0
Stars
0
Embers
0
Alerts
0
Inbox

Vote

Voting-Boards

Home

HomeFollowingInboxNotifications

Read

ReadLiftedFeedsHeartedHistoryMy poemsNew poem

Explore

ExploreOrbitsWordsTagsClassics
Log in
0
Stars
0
Embers
0
Alerts
0
Inbox

A Diary of a Working Girl

I am barely a mineral now, not yet a woman in the ground,

not yet growing gardens and begging people to cook my peppers.

My home is dizzy from my constant re-entry, which helps me to cheat,

in life I am looking for the harvest in  people. I am a thread of cotton pulling

every word like it is more porous than the next, which helps me.

I summersault through conversations rather read in sharpie,

on the last corner white space of bathroom stalls,

alone and blushed. I remember love like a tagline inviting a smile

and messages to strangers. When I look in the mirror I am always inhaling,

my mouth says O, O I am out of excuses. I tell everyone I’m tired of working,

which helps me to hide in my comet ways. I am tight-lined,  

which is to say I feel love on the hairs of my arms, the wind,

the blades of fans speak to me at night when I have nothing left to say.

I am licensed to moving. In the dark in the cities public spaces and

also in alleyways I am soft like a moonbeam. I am convinced the world is a sewer,

which helps me to explain the exchange of waste and skin and the secrets hidden

in tunnels of shadows. When I move the world blurs with me like a heartbeat.

I am underground like the sewer, rotten in negative spaces, which helps me,

to hear the echo ripple swish of every piece of trash call my name.

I have no response. Some days the world is too ***** One day I will learn

to quilt and stitch together every important face, which will help me

to remember my grandmother and how she loved to balloon to the sky.

I dream she is a large magellanic cloud beaming out of the universe, the force

of believing is the word Hallelujah sung from the lips of Leonard Cohen.

It is midnight. It is noon. I close my eyes for a second and I see myself as miles

from the moon. I am running every day now and there is nothing left to see. My heart

is a kitchen door swinging and it does not want to stop.

Request permission to use this poem
Written by
carly-salzberg
American
Published
Sep 20, 2012
Lines·Words
27·376
Permission

Request to use this poem

Tell carly-salzberg how you would like to use it. We review requests before forwarding them.

AboutBlogFAQPrivacyTermsContact
© 2009-2026 Hello Poetry/v27.0 by @eliotyork
Explore
Hello PoetryVoting
Write