Suzy Smithe: Favorites

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

all along

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

C E Nowlin

she made houses out of cards and pictures with old paints
her hair was never perfect and her lines weren’t always straight
the dresses in her closet were her own kind of mystery
the way she danced around in them for none but i to see
the private little corner where she used to read her books
became a sanctuary when the world within her shook
you watched the angel flit around you watched her ship sails waving
you held her hand and kissed her lips but deemed her not-worth-saving
this girl she fell she tumbled down she fell and fell and fell
she stumbled cried and nearly died for you did all but well
internally you robbed her bones you took her very life
but physically there was no crime in not making her a wife
no crime they said so you went free as if nothing could have mattered
you broke through the window pane and left the glass there shattered
she lay there in the broken glass the painful red-tinged shards
and remembered simple days and that house made out of cards
she thought back to the summers then before her whole life changed
and realized that no matter what she’d never be the same

when all along she had just love for clever words and pretty things
it was you you you who broke her spirit and you who tore her wings.

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

The Castle

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

C E Nowlin

The Castle

They asked me,
When I was only a child,
About the castle.
I told them
How I love to watch
The smoke
That blended with
the gray English sky
Rise from the turrets;
To watch the lady there,
Wistful,
Ride her mare.
I told them
That the castle was very beautiful,
But I
Did not want to live there.

They asked again,
When the flowers were but blooming,
About the castle.
Again I said
How the garden was
So beautifully kept,
And that the roses were
Fairer than any others;
But that the daughter,
Whose hair shone like
A raven's back,
Was too forlorn.
I told them
That the garden was lovely,
But I
Did not want to live there.

They asked again,
At the end of my learning age,
But then my opinion mattered not.
They packed my bags,
And moved my prizes
To that castle
Whose cold stone walls were
Not nearly so beautiful from the inside;
Where the firelight shone
On saddened faces,
On broken souls,
And the door closed me in darkness.
I told them
That the castle was cold,
But still
They locked me there.

I was writing a short story about a girl forced into an arranged marriage at age eighteen to a man she knew and liked well enough, but didn't 'love' per se. She appreciated the women around her (notably her sisters) who found contentedness in their marriages, but didn't feel it was right for her. This poem came to me in class one day, when that raven haired girl picking the flowers in the castle garden just wouldn't leave me alone. And so The Castle was born.

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

Why Am I Washing Off the Medicine?

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

Erin Little

Why Am I Washing Off the Medicine?

Why can’t I just have both?
Different flavors of the same dream,
Different fabrics with the same seam
Two metals with similar sheen
I suppose I’ll become a get through, I’ll make do
I can’t mold these things I’ve told myself, they’re all laying askew
It is your loving and secretly selfish way
Impress me with the chivalry of King Arthur’s day
The guilt of greed as we hang on each other’s every word
Hide your glances meekly. Think of a way to keep me
We do our devil dance concealed by masks all along
Our innocent love turning into need, need for us both to belong
I receive your Valentines kiss, lost in momentary bliss
I have painted and sculpted myself to act like this
I welcome you to build me up in your mind, and maybe someday I’ll play the part
Until that day I’ll be a slave to the words I see as art.

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

On My Own Scale

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

Erin Little

On My Own Scale

Tell me I’m brilliant

For the fibers and threads of my mind have recently tattered themselves
Leaving an array of unfinished thoughts and suppressed emotion
Piling up until my worth has been completely displaced
A tower such as I needn’t have limits such as these
However, I have recently become accustomed to the cruel realities of the world
Where everything exists as a number, high or low
Acquiring these numbers prompts man to do back flips, cart wheels, until he knows all he can possibly know
I stand with man on a platter of judgment
Look at me through the glass and assess how transparent my eccentricity is
Whosoever fabricates their lives should be cast out, but how often is this really done?
I stand with a number possibly too small and maybe too outreaching
It all depends on what the powers are teaching
The numbers leave no room for speech or rhythm or character
This is why I choose word as my craft, in hope that everyone can stand on that judgment pillar and feel light upon their shoulders
And breathe slowly into their souls
And say that the world will oblige me, whatever number I hold in my hands

I have not been put in this world to give into such demands.

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

Pure Happiness

Jun 2012 Suzy Smithe

Erin Little

Pure Happiness

I didn’t believe such a thing could be pure, because the word is so cluttered in itself
Happiness is a cluttered word

It’s cluttered with misconceptions of its meaning: the distortion in between the perfectly round consonants and vowels
You wouldn’t think there’d be much room for a world of misconstrued and sometimes subdued views in the tiny space between the plump “a” and the content “p”

But in the miles of space between the embrace of the letters are worlds of difference
People that think happiness is money, the green scene, living large, party barge credit card charge

Or the people that think happiness is ***, a good blow, heavy petting, get a zoo, pet all the animals you want.

We dig ourselves into a hole where we can’t control this self-filling bowl of “happiness”
For me, happiness is driving in my car at sixty miles an hour while listening to a sweetly soothing Melody Gardot
She sings of blue birds that heard the words of the people below, as I feel the blue birds tell me that it’s okay. I will be okay.

Somehow I soak the sun, though it’s winter and the sun is hiding deep in the soil under the snow that continues to blow even though we’re in Dallas, Texas.
That’s ironic.

— The End —