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Robbie Sep 2018
Part I – 10039 330th Street West

I used to live in a haunted house.
Everything about the building felt wrong:
Creaking staircase,
Crumbling basement walls,
Dark side door,
Thin white curtain in the bathroom, which housed a clawfoot tub.

When I lived in the haunted house
I was a little girl, and I didn’t move until I started high school.
I hated my room,
I hated the dining room,
I hated the basement.
I never used the bathroom, which housed a clawfoot tub.

Bad things happened in the haunted house.
It didn’t matter what the time of day was.
Growling at night from the dining room,
Singing in the morning from the basement,
Tapping on the porch window at midday in the playroom.
Nobody checked if there was activity in the bathroom, which housed a clawfoot tub.

I know that the house was haunted
Because someone was always with me when these things happened.
My stepbrother who also heard the growling,
My stepsister who also heard the singing,
And all of us who heard the tapping.
I know that these happened
Because the house was haunted.


Part II – 13947 Gates Avenue

I used to live in a haunted house.
Everything about the building felt wrong:
My bad report cards in the recycling,
The constant panic in my stomach,
Piles of tissues on my bedroom floor,
My bedroom itself, where I constantly hid away.

When I lived in the haunted house
I was a teenager, and I didn’t move until after starting college.
I hated the living room,
I hated the kitchen,
I hated the hallway.
Most of all I hated my bedroom, where I constantly hid away.

Bad things happened in the haunted house.
It didn’t matter what the time of day was.
Whistling by the window at night from the wraparound porch,
Screaming outside during the day from the yard,
Voices whispering my name constantly from anywhere.
I was only safe in my bedroom, where I constantly hid away.

I can’t know that the house was haunted
Because nobody was with me when these things happened.
I was alone with the whistling,
I was alone with the screaming,
I was alone with the whispering.
I can’t know these happened
Because it’s my head that’s haunted.
Robbie Apr 2017
They say it is better to have loved and lost
Than to have never loved at all.
Sometimes I think that they are right.
Sometimes, too, I wonder about my own masochistic tendencies-
Wonder why I revel in the thrill of a broken heart.
I go back to those same old stories:
When the lover dies,
When the war is lost,
When the hero is vanquished.
The pages of those old novels are scattered with faded teardrops
And yet I return to them again and again
To feel that same wrenching in my chest
Somewhere behind my ribcage.
I look at myself in the mirror
And wonder if I’m a pretty crier.
And I look at the vague scars on my skin
And wonder which kind of pain is better
The physical or the mental.
I don’t feel that heartache anymore
That beautiful, haunting, throbbing pain
That let me know that, at least, I am alive.
They say that absence makes the heart
Grow fonder.
Mostly I think they are wrong.
Mostly, too, I wonder about what it would feel like-
Wonder what it would be to feel that lovely stinging pain again.
Robbie Apr 2017
Dark birds take flight and swoop through the chill air.
Shadows hover over a sleeping form.
Silence hangs inside a skull’s socket stare.
Spirits convene in a soft huddled swarm.
Storm clouds linger low in the near distance.
Buzzards peck at a carcass left to rot.
A last breath does not put up resistance.
A soul bends to the forces it once fought.
Quiet whispers of your name in the night.
An evil figure follows close behind.
The dripping teeth of a dog’s fatal bite.
An unspoken word is terror defined.

The darkness in life is all that I fear,
And yet holds everything that draws me near.
Robbie Apr 2017
Last night I hit a cat.

I've never hit an animal with my car before.
I've been in a car that has hit an animal,
but it's different when you're the one driving.

It was late. It was drizzling.
I was coming home from work.
My right eye was blurry.

I live in the country off of a gravel road.
I was two minutes from home,
at the top of the big hill.

It shot out from the dark brush on the right.
They teach you in driver's ed not to swerve
if an animal comes at your car.

I didn't swerve. I wish I had.
It's different when you're the one driving.
I felt it, in my bones. In my heart.

I heard it, too, over the roar of violins from my radio.
I coasted twenty feet; threw the car in park.
I put on my flashers, since that's what you should do.

I haven't cried that hard since we put my own cat down.
I didn't know I had it in me to sob that viscerally.
I think I'll feel that cat in my bones until I'm dead.
Robbie Mar 2017
The willow's slender, gentle boughs
Extending like so many depressed but welcoming arms
Towards the maiden deep below in dark waters.

This is the willow that grows aslant a brook.
This is the tree who witnessed the mad ravings of a girl,
Who watched as she did pick those flowers
And draped them as a noose about her form.

The tree, the only witness to the young woman's fall
Or perhaps a leap, a jump, into the abyss.
It is for her that the willow weeps.
Robbie Mar 2017
One, with a layer of dust on it,
behind the toothbrush holder
below the hand towel.
Vitamin D – to curb panic,
to promote happiness.
Useless and old and forgotten.

Two, to replace the vitamins,
sitting front and center
among the more useful bottles.
Prozac – half-finished,
sometimes forgotten.
Huge capsules hard to choke down
every morning with a glass of water,
and the anxiety they are meant to stop
making it difficult to swallow.

Three, four, and five, nearly empty canisters of
antibiotics – not much else
to be said about them.

Six, for times of emergency,
awake in the early hours when sleep is necessary.
Melatonin – for forcing the heavy blanket of slumber.
Strong, but not prescription.
All-natural, from the health store in town.

Seven, the newest bottle to replace
the many emptied ones.
Painkillers – over-the-counter, perhaps,
but abused nevertheless.

Eight, completely emptied, tipped on its side
by the empty glass of water, standing in its own plastic wrapping.
Tylenol –.
Robbie Mar 2016
The day may be calm
But it can begin within an instant

Storms are like panthers
Quick on their feet and always alert
Black as night
Deadly when not taken seriously
Often striking when least expected

The clear sky
Once as blue as a hidden creek
Becomes a mirage behind the clouds that blanket it

Time seems to stop
You and I notice nothing
Flowers hide within their petals
Closing off from the outside world
Birds silence themselves
Taking cover in the tree branches
And the cloying scent of rain fills the air

Together, we all wait
Humans and nature alike
With bated breath
As the first heavy drops begin to fall

The storm picks up quickly
Clouds so full of water that they seem about to burst
Cry tears down on the grass

The wind screams out an eerie warning:
This is only the beginning
The worst has yet to come

Clouds darken and close in
The first flash of lightning licks the sky
Leaving the air full of electricity
And tasting like fire

A heartbeat later
The ground trembles as thunder growls
Trees shake, all the way from their delicate leaves
Down to the very ends of their roots
For the wind sings louder
And the trees know what is to come

The clouds still their tears
Lightning and thunder pause in their game
Of cat-and-mouse
Skies turn an ominous green
As the rumble of trains are heard from a distance

Chaos is let loose
As if Pandora’s Box has been unlocked
A siren’s shriek rips through the air

The black funnel pours out of a cloud
Stretches its neck toward the ground
Picks up anything it can grasp in its hole of a mouth
Chews it
Swallows it
Spits it out again

Everything in its path is left broken

The funnel retreats back into the angry clouds
Leaving with a final streak of lightning
And a restrained purr of thunder

Pale light shines through the cloud in patches as they disperse
Illuminating the destruction
The only proof of a monstrous storm

We come out of hiding, you and I
Begin rebuilding the damage
Under the colors of the rainbow
And a shining sun
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