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Dec 2014
Memories make you uncomfortable
but they wrap themselves around me
So when I tell you stories
about Sunday mornings or Christmas trees
Please listen
to the tears I hold back

And I know it isn’t healthy to look back
Like a sweater you outgrew making you uncomfortable
But please listen
To the words tumbling from me
Like leaves falling from dying trees
Because all I have left are stories

And I scream them from skyline stories

I cannot hold them back
They take root in my brain like great trees
The branches spring from my throat uncomfortable
I must remove them from me
Please just listen

Because I’ve been distanced so just listen
These aren’t the stories
I wanted to weigh on me

But I’m back 
to being uncomfortable

in my own skin. Scratching like bark from trees

Do you remember the front yard? Decorated by trees
They sing in the wind if you listen
The sound would make me uncomfortable
Because of all the old stories
Of skeletons hung back
But you lit candles and wrapped rainbows around me

So forgive me
If I cry for skinned knees from falling down trees
that healed awhile back
And you don’t have to listen

If these stories

make you uncomfortable.



I’m uncomfortable

with the stories

being rewritten. So you don’t have to listen
Victoria Anne Noel Shinkle
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