Soccer is the sport
Which my heart belongs to
Kicking a ball into a goal
Under a sky so blue

Yesterday a game
Was played quite nicely
Until the end
When we became less feisty

A kickoff to start
The beginning of the game
Not many spectators
As it's not of fame

Trying to get the ball
Like a good player should
I get backhanded in the face
Hard
Knocked to the ground as I should

The refs call no fouls
As they favor the other team
It made me so mad
Since my lip had begun to bleed

Further into the game
The ball comes towards me
Nails me in the stomach
Making me want to scream

The halftime whistle blows
We get off the field
To go over the game plan
And take a time to chill

Getting back on the field
Determined to tie the game
We get the kickoff
The ball our claim

So ways into the game
Another player crashes into me
I fall to the ground in pain
Because I twisted my knee

I'm taken off the field
Another player goes in my place
But it didn't really matter
The game was over with grace

It wasn't our best game
But we've certainly had worse
Next time we'll score
And hopefully, no one will get hurt

Flashbacks of a confidant fool
Flying through life with out any rules
Headlong into danger
The adrenaline rush is an intoxicating flavor
Thoughts of past injuries are nothing but flashes
As quickly he dashes
With those famous last words on his lips
WATCH THIS!!!!

Flashbacks of a confidant fool
Flying through life with out any rules
Headlong into danger
The adrenaline rush is an intoxicating flavor
Thoughts of past injuries are nothing but flashes
As quickly he dashes
With those famous last words on his lips
WATCH THIS!!!!

Injuries

My ankles are burned left and right, and my knees are probably scraped somewhere. I sit straight, not to be polite, but because my spine muscles were ripped—in a car wreck. Everyone was all right. But I still feel it when it rains.

And since I was eleven, my wrist snaps like this SNAP Every. Day.

And my cat has scratched me one too many times. Lovers see my skinned back, and the scars of my arm or the twitch behind my left eye. But no one notices my split *******, the one I broke in half. And I have no scar where my heart shattered in my late teens. Or on my lips from bile on that day, this day, yesterday, or tomorrow.

You cannot see the death of my loved ones from my skin, and my ears don’t bleed from broken promises. My eyes aren’t forever affected by the tears that felt like forever, and my voice doesn’t sound different because I screamed at her one too many times.

I’m not dead because someone else is dead, but sometimes my heart doesn’t feel like it’s there as my injuries reflect my body, they reflect nothing inside.

...

I read at the University of Kansas during their Undergraduate Reading Series. Read more about this event here:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/02/11/my-undergraduate-reading/

I'm done with the pain
I'm done with the hurt
In my muscles
Nerves
Bones

The inflicted pain
The stretching
Brings me no joy
I hate it

In 13 years
What have I got?
No better
Only worse

Injuries beyond belief
The pysio
For the pain endured
Every week!

Do I stay?
Do I go?
How do I decide
Loyalty of life itself?

I can't,  I really can't!

my skeleton never liked me
very much. it cracks in unusual
places, ribcage poking out of its
skin prison, the frailty of it
breaking beneath the musical
whispers of the wind through hollow
spaces.  i see

light bursting beneath the flash
of a camera and my skin
incinerates - do not look do not touch
do not look - and the charcoal in
my lungs is set on fire. i wake up
with ash beneath my tongue
far too often. my skin

despises me now that i have
bruises in places no one could
kiss better. there's this scar above
my right knee, which dislocates when
my life falls out of its socket, and it
reopens and blood pours from the
renewed wound too often. i think

i have a body that likes to believe it is dying.

i'm a liar.
it's in my bones, in the dust on this floor, in the wind:
all the truths i never told;
in truth, i don't know where to begin.

shall i begin in crop circles of dust?
in ripped jeans and bruised wrists?
in torn lips, in broken noses, in sprained ankles --
in corpses, rotting from the inside out.

shall i begin in an empty parking lot?
in forced company and silent observations?
in bitten nails, in sleepy thoughts, in crossed ankles --
in statues, frozen from the inside out.

shall i begin where everything will end?
in musty earthen tones and cracking cement?
in rusted metal, in cracking branches, in broken ankles --
in angels, burned from the inside out.

all the truths i never told;
in truth, i don't know where to begin.