Rachael P Presley

Rachael P Presley Feb 2013

Twenty

Twenty-years old and still wishing on shooting stars
Because a part of you is still naïve and dying
A last breathe for who you are
Paper-mache hearts aren’t going to cut it this time
They can’t fix your house of fallen cards
And at the end of the day you’ll tell yourself
You’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

Sometimes it’s so hard to breathe
It’s all you can do to pull your hair and put your head
In between your knees
Pray to God it’ll be over soon,
Because the emptiness is sinking you like lead
Dead-weight on the bottom of the ocean
But you’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

You ignore their questioning looks with headstrong stubbornness
Though your nails are biting through your skin
You refuse to run from this
Not this time, not ever again, let them look
At a twenty year old ****** who’s never been on a date
Because she’s got more faith in herself
Because she knows she’s worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

They don’t understand why you refuse the boys who ask you
And you won’t tell them it’s because they’re not right,
As a sure as the rising moon
That you just have to keep waiting and wishing
On How, Why, and Who
Keep on throwing those pennys down wells
When it’s all you’ve got
When you know you’re worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

Nights are the hardest, you know from experience
It would be so easy to put on that little black dress and find a willing stranger
To break the rose-tented lens
To feel some affection, even if it’s only for a moment
To feel something different
Than desperate hopeful prayers to a paradise that doesn’t seem to care
But you respect yourself too much for that
And you have to believe it’s worth it
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

Some days are worse than others
And you lose yourself in music, choke on your frustrated screams
Try to convince yourself you don’t feel nearly as smothered
And suffocated, as you want to be
Even though you’re smart and there’s more to life than love
The only thing that can be felt is that someone missing,
And oh God, you pray you’re worth it
It runs like mantra pounding through your head
(I am, I am, I am, I am)

*(You are, you are, you are, you are)

Rachael P Presley Feb 2013

Personal Preferance

You say you've got it all figured out,
got the science down at age nine-teen.
I roll my eyes, because that's just silly.
I'm older than you by a year at least,
but regardless, I watch you hitch your
skirt up and strap your heels on before
leaving the house. You think I'm crazy
to stay around only to meander about
in my fuzzy socks and stained sweatshirt.

I'll have you know that I actually quite
enjoy my one-women tea parties with
Ms. Austin and the Bronte girls on a
Friday night. At least I won't get a head
ache from strobe-lights and my utter
confusion when it comes to pretty-looking
cocktails. I realize I probably won't be
seeing you until midmorning anyway
when you stumble rather impressively
into the kitchens still in your club clothes.

You'll make a disgusted noise at my
pillow fort, my coloring books, my
towering stack of certifiable Disney
DVDS and I will pretend not to notice
that you smell like stale sweat, alcohol,
and aftershave.

You will feel compelled to tell me all
about him, all about them, all about all
of last night--down to the last disturbing
detail--and I will burry my face in my cereal
so you can't see the faces I'm making.

Undoubtedly you are bragging
(or so you think), but really, I'd rather
not have had so-and-so pawing at me
all night, because neither you nor I
know where he's been, and I personally
find no appeal in waking up in someone
else's unfamiliar room because my comforter
is super soft and fluffy and I feel like a
princess when I go to bed all clean
and cute in my PJs. This way I can get up
whenever I want and take a shower and
be loud and not have to put the seat up
when I *** or quietly try and find my way
out of someone else's home.

Also, I'm lazy most of the time so
I definitely wouldn't like the walk
home so early in the day. I have to say
that I much prefer my crayons to your
aspirin, my forts to your mysterious
bathrooms, my imaginary sword fights
to your hike home. Most importantly,
I like waking up regretting nothing the
previous the night except that I didn't
get to watch all of Mulan and what her
reflection really shows.

Rachael P Presley Sep 2012

Breathing in Concrete (You)

My heart hurts for you.
For the swirling ashes
You call home. The burning
Embers, the paper smoke
You call your soul. Thunder—
It was like thunder. A thick cloud,
Dense enough to smother the sun.
Silence settles deep in my bones. I
Breathe you in, and you constrict
My throat. You looked like snow
On the streets below.
My eyes were wide, my beliefs were
Stolen. I watched you crash, dust
To dust, and so many hearts
Were broken. The taste of
Horrifying defeat sinks in, like
You do, bitter and reeking of
Concrete and steal. And I saw
You fall, I saw you fall. I saw you
Bend and break, I saw the end of it
All. It looked like a hot knife
Cutting through butter, but the knife
Was on fire you and you were
Determined not to be deterred
From the stairwell where you heard
Every shattered window screeching
Like titanium steal, beseeching you—
Listen to the warning, 93 flights away.
But you’re on fire, on my tongue.
A reminder of the two-thousand
seven-hundred and forty-eight things I
should’ve-could’ve done.
Yes, my heart hurts for you, my son.

In tribute and respect to those touched by or lost in 9/11. Peace be with you.

Rachael P Presley Aug 2012

A Most Terrible Thing

There are things you can’t fix
broken broken broken
like hearts on a string.
It’s a terrible thing not to believe in love—
“In love,” What does that even mean
except being in lust hung upon a ring?
I don’t know what I know anymore,
because dreams fall like castles and kings.
The weight of the world rests on the shoulders
of a fragile butterfly flying with fairy wings
who still tries to believe there’s a prince in
blue jeans waiting just around the corner
ready to show her what happily-ever-after
means, because reality is a cold and dark place
to be, where its easy to get lost when lost is
all you can be. Just like that, a light can go out,
a candle burning in your heart snuffed like the
end of a shooting star. The rest of us are so far
gone, so far lost there isn’t anything left but a
long walk home in the dark. So I won’t wish on
cross-my-heart-hope-to-die-you-broke-my-heart-
and-made-me-cry. I’ll only wish on stars who shine
bright where they are on this path of mine. It’s
a long way back to where I started from, and there
are monsters out there awaiting my way a ways from
here. So best be on your guard and take care, because
its the most terrible thing, not believe in love if its there.

Rachael P Presley Aug 2012

drip drip dripping

i understand now why some people do it—
shred their wrists so something can escape,
can breathe, can force its way out of your skin—
drip drip drip like the sink faucet that doesn’t
quite work, because at least drip drip drip isn’t
choking on the nothing you can’t say or gasping
for things you wish you could feel and it only
leaves you clawing for heartbreak with bloodied hands
and ripped fingernails like
ohgod,ohgod,air,breathe,keepbreathing,ohgod
and drip drip drip and screams that echo in your
mind like a mantra instead of tearing from your
throat and if a tree falls but nobody is around to hear it
does it still make a sound? does it? does it?
drip drip drip like steady clockwork, but maybe not
the sane kind, just the kind that’s losing something--like
your mind or possibly blood, and you know it isn’t healthy,
it’s a sickness, a disease, a different kind of drug addiction
and the syringe needle is leaking drip drip drip until its
too late and you just drift drift drift away and your
heart explodes without oxygen but at least you feel it,
and even when you’re too far away to hear it, you know
you’re drip drip dripping.

Rachael P Presley May 2012

Lights Out

Lights out, it’s a quiet one tonight.
Watch the firelights in the windows blow out,
dim the world so it’s okay,
because tonight is for yourself and a little pain.
Tonight, tonight,
when silence cuts the cords
holding up the tension you conveniently forgot
to mention to anyone else
and it falls on your shoulders,
where it breaks like glass,
even though you’re older
and this isn’t supposed to happen anymore.
Tonight at midnight you’ll let go,
and fight against yourself,
for yourself,
with yourself,
stuck in this special kind of hell
that only exists when the clock strikes twelve.
And you hide from the shadows on the wall,
the ones that watch your graceless fall from dignity's esteem,
though later I’m sure you’ll take back
every “God save me,”
that you whispered on a broken lisp from your split lip
bleeding from biting so hard, no one can hear,
there can’t be anything too loud from the part of you
that screams about how smiling is an art you’ve perfected,
even as it’s laughing at how disgusting you are in your head.
You know you’re a disaster at best.
There’s something to be said for lonely nights at midnight:
You’re a lot stronger by the first sight of dawn
(though by that time it usual feels like you’re too far gone).

This is an ooollllddd poem I've found buried beneath all of the others.

Rachael P Presley May 2012

REDROBINRED

I imagine that if she could,
the scissor-tailed fly-catcher would
cut, small and thin, but stinging so sharp,
so deep it would nick your soul.

I imagine that the vulture would sneer at his peers in
the throws of death as they gasp for breath,
fighting for their lives, and he would laugh.
Silly bird, he would think, you can’t
escape death.

And he would swoop down upon them so
they could see that he was coming,
the avian grim reaper watching their fear.
And after they died he would peck at their souls,
their dreams, their goals.

I imagine that the canary so small, bright, and pure flits her
way through life on the trade-wind’s whim.
She would not know of weaponized
words or the cold regard for another’s life.

And I imagine that if I were a bird, I would
be a robin, redredred with rage barley contained,
but silent still till I let it bubble and build
and I, I would know why the caged bird sings.