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Ellen Joyce Jul 2013
Her laugh broke the window pane -
shards of glass pouring like rain,
the sound of shattering safety made her blood run cold
as she clung to disintegrating silence.

Grains of silent-self
pricking the backs of her eyes until tears streamed down her cheeks
wiping fiction from flesh, eyes turned to the floor
so you won't see the sadness where the sparkle should be.
Could be.
Would be.
Maybe.

She feels the barbed wire noose around her tongue loosen,
unfurling its razor sharp grip on her throat
to the melody of the sweet small voice singing soothing songs
seducing her to speak.

Speak.
The words fall clumsily from her lips like ***** clattering plates
splattering waste on wall and doors
leaving a mess that cannot be swept
nor hidden under the carpet or clothes.
"Please. Please.".

She feels eyes burning into naked-self
declaring the truth as if it had the strength to stand,
to bear the weight of shame from times that should remain untold,
but she told.
"Look away. Please. Don’t look at me,
I need you not to look at me, please please please".

She squirms beneath the squirming,
the crawling cascade of bugs under her skin,
in her-self, ***** girl -
ankles twisting, fingers bending, hands trembling,
heart beating, breath quickening, mouth begging
"please please don’t look at me".

The kiss to be seen, breaks like a scream
on the back of a lifetime playing dead,
choking back the words left unsaid,
hiding scars of the wounds that once bled.  

Wounds that call from beneath layers of scar tissue,
a symphony of whispering simpering bacteria
recalling the filthy mire imploding from the pyre;
seal after seal broken leaving her less beauty, more beast.  
Her pleas broke the threshold,
falling forward, hands and knees grinding into twigs and leaves,
his grip so thick on her hair
that he heaves out a scream from the depths of her bowels,
ripping through tension and fear
to gift a mark, a shame, a name that won’t disappear –
“Don’t look at me”.  

They call it ******
as if you could name a pain that seared so deep it
drew a blood that would take a week to heal
and a ***** that would never stop rising.  

Her arms buckled under the weight of shame,
of blame, of every screaming name he seethed into her sullied flesh,
with every wavering breath she breathed – “please don’t look at me”.  

His hands grip beneath her hips
nails biting into aching, seeping flesh, filling her pores with
more, more, more.  

Baths - a thing of the past,
water hot, rusted and greying with the rot that lies on her,
with the putrid knot that lies in her.  
“I’m so ashamed.”

Her exhaustion broke her human-ness –
body depleted from repeated invasion that she couldn’t stop,
that he wouldn’t stop -
as forced kisses stole breath,
focus lost and a nip to his tongue would cost a choke-hold to blur the world,
spit on her face hurled with the venom of an injured python.  

Cold, hard, scraping against skin trying to get in –
“Please.” –
bugs crawling, cascading, invading,
fighting my womb, biting my flesh raw, boring into my blood
turning life force to mud and self separated from beautiful source.  

I felt his thrill at my hip.
“Please don’t ...
Is it masochism to share the most humiliating, hurt or is it healthy?”
*
Her mouth broke -
alive with sensations and nerves that serve
to taste to feel, to flex a tongue to sing to speak to eat.  
He drew her to her knees,
with greater and greater ease
to penetrate perception with ******* till her jaw ached and strained,
drained, choking back the spoils of man,
feeling panic as her stomach recoils vomiting shame.

On the bus, on the plane,
a child kicks the seat,
Loudly sings a half-song
on repeat.

Watch the adults wince,
the parents hiss under their breath,
their patience thinned to wire.

They stare harder at their safety cards,
at crossword clues,
at the blue glow of movies
they won’t remember.

This is the invitation-
Not the kind printed on cardstock,
but the kind that comes with grape jelly fingerprints,
with questions about the clouds,
with shoelaces that won’t stay tied.

Tell me more about that dragon.
That’s not a shadow, it’s a mountain.
What would you name the ocean
if “ocean” was taken?

When they cry,
que the jokes,
make a peanut packet talk-
and the aisle is lighter for it.

How could this not be better
than folding yourself into a seat,
guarding your stiff silence?

Soon they’re gone,
dragging backpacks like spare limbs,
wet-cheeked or grinning.

I sit in the quiet,
watching the passengers
already back to their closed faces.
The question stays:
how could that human response
not be better
when the world hands us
small, loud,
unrepeatable gifts-
and we hand them back unopened?
Shane Aug 14
You observe a shadowy figure
Crouched on weathered planks
Staring into the depths
Of the ocean's vast embrace

The stars shine overhead
And a sliver of the moon
Reflects on crested waves

You watch the figure stand
Then take a haunting step
And vanish from the light

A view so picturesque
That most may never know
What remains
Beneath the surface
A Stepmother’s voice cuts
through the campground:
Who left the cooler open?
Who moved the ******* cushions?
Her words snap the branches.

My father, just arrived,
hat wet with sweat,
stooped to tie the boat off at a tree,
met at once by her complaints,
her tally of our failures.

Her glare pressed hot against my back.
I climbed the pine,
legs scraping bark,
eyes fixed on the shimmer below-
anywhere but here.

She was there:
elbow on the water’s skin,
hair spread like wet silk,
eyes pouring over me.
Come with me, she said.

Where?

Down there.
She smiled, copper arm pointing to the deep.
It’s warm.
The fish brush your skin.

I remembered: sirens don’t save you.
They keep you.

She dove,
silver tearing water’s face,
and the lake closed like a locked door.

When she rose,
her shoulders gleamed like knives.
Laughter rolled toward me,
the same heat as the shore,
only sweeter.

Your turn.

I leapt.
The lake’s mouth closed over me.
Green-gold everywhere.
Her hair against my cheek.
Her tail’s slow beckoning.

I followed
until the light shattered above.
I almost stayed-
not to drown,
but to live where the voices could not reach.
Should one sing by the voice of
one and others silenced.
Shut! Speak!
Silence speaks.
Silence speaks like a rapping knock
  to its host.
Should the voice of a singer sings
louder than its crowd.
The singer sings.
Crowd cheers than their crowd.
Should silence speaks when voices
speaks?
Who hears the voice of the dead?
Who hears the voice of
emptiness?
Barren.
Who hears nothing when it never
happens.
Silence speaks
And its biro writes [un]willingly.
The poem is a summarised feeling of emptiness to those unheard.
girlinflames Aug 27
I should keep silent more often—
today, yesterday,
and every day.

I feel useless.
I’m good for nothing.
Oh yes—
for cooking,
washing clothes,
ironing them afterward,
cleaning the house.
Yes, very useful indeed.

The problem is—
I made so many plans.
Ah, the plans!
The joy and the uncertainty of man.
The goals achieved
at the end of the journey.

Where are mine?
Gone,
long ago.

I wish I could tell you
about all my victories.
I’m sorry—
the ones I have
hold no value for me.

What I do have
are debts,
endless fatigue,
and the perpetual feeling
that I am a failure.

Yet silence,
before my failure,
brings light to my mind—
inspiration,
poetry.

I think I’ve learned
not to throw myself
back into the well I climbed out of.
And yet,
I lean over the edge,
staring down,
as if searching for something.

But there’s nothing there.
It seems the plans
I make for myself—
I throw them all down there,
as if burying them
in a grave—
my grave, once.

And now?
Another day passes.
I have made nothing
of myself.
Nosy Aug 11
Mis pensamientos no descansan.  
Las plantas ya no bastan.  
Estoy triste.  
Triste está mi corazón.  

No quiero tu amor.  
No quiero tus palabras.  
El silencio camina conmigo.  
Necesito silencio.
girlinflames Aug 11
There were many times
I cried
beside you
lying in bed
wrapped in blankets
I don’t know if you heard
I only know you did nothing
I’m still waiting
for you to do something
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