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Madeline Hicks Feb 2021
My seams are unraveling.
No, not unraveling,
Simply traveling to another place,
Another time, keeping pace with pacing lines
Lining stitch by stitch as each one falls away.
Another day away and still the fraying corners
eat decaying corpses, trapped sojourners
From another place, another time.
I am fine. And my finely sharpened edges
Carve finely sharpened wedges into the cracks
inside the cracking cavern in my skull.
Dramatics. Call me actress.
These are antics of my mind I call distress.
Call me figure of the stage and of the dress.
But I get stage fright, and the lights that shine for me
are not friendly, they are mean.
They are fakers, takers of light, great figures of fright.
They carve my caving walls,
and empty stalls of shopping malls, abandoned halls
And eyeless dolls who crave my mortal scream.
What can I do but scream?
As my skin peels back like fabric,
The cavern in my skull croons, an addict,
shaking, pulse racing as my quaking hands wave
to an invisible stage.
The lights are up, the monsters creep
How can I dare to fall asleep?
Not so easy, my creeping foe
My stitching fades and we both know
That while fabric once torn can mend,
A mind once broken will still bend.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
It’s a sunny day.
Clouds squat over the horizon,
But under their hazy scowl
The sunshine burns all the brighter.
I am not lifted, I am comforted.
Still broken, but mending.
Golden warmth wraps around me;
Nervous breeze touches my face,
Fingertips caressing my skin.
The smell of rain reminds me
My path is hidden in fog.
But for now, I close my eyes.
I enjoy the warmth
Of a sunny day.
Madeline Hicks Nov 2021
Autumn, once again
Has awoken this sleepless slumberer,
She drags about to lumber
through her day to day,
Watching herself waste away.
But now, Autumn has returned,
Pumpkin and cinnamon lace the air
Apple cider to prepare,
And heavy coats wrapped tightly
Around shaking fingers,
The warmth, of one last kiss that lingers
And the way the firelight dances,
Whisking memories of frost away.
Sleepless slumberer blinks, cracked skin
Splits into a smile,
Watching the cascade of inferno
Fall from weathered trees.
Each, to its own season,
Like the slumberer, whose reason,
Has finally been refreshed, at ease.
It is Autumn, and she is pleased.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
Snap, click, camera.
A moment captured in time.
A poem without any words,
picture with rhythm and rhyme.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
I cannot stand to hope,
for empty hope? Despair.
My two-faced way to cope,
A hope that is not there.
Madeline Hicks Feb 2021
My mind calls me Imposter.
I rip my skin, letting blood pool on its surface.
I, Monster, lick my wound and cry that I am broken.
I howl in the dread that I am nothing.
Terrified, I scream into the void.
No answer floats up from its depth.
Perhaps it didn't hear me.
Perhaps no sound ripped through my throat, perhaps its raw constriction didn't manifest into noise, perhaps I, monster, cannot be heard.
Monsters don't exist.
I, Imposter, groan and go about my day.
Madeline Hicks Feb 2021
Aged mirror, what have you seen?
What secrets do you hold?
You pause the passing moments,
Keep them, never to grow old.
What darting glances have you caught,
Tearful fights reluctant fought,
Subtle hand slips to another,
One man calls his friend a brother.
Have you caught death,
A life's first breath?
Have you witnessed an idea's birth?
The caroling song of laughter's mirth?
People pass you, pause just to check,
Their hair, a blemish, some unseen fleck,
Then onward with their lives,
Leave some small trace of soul behind.
And so you collect pieces of people,
Some vivaciously alive, some feeble.
Some living to fill the day,
Or waiting for it to pass away.
I wonder what you've seen, oh mirror,
The pieces that connect us.
A small reflective shard of glass,
Its purpose to collect us.
Madeline Hicks Feb 2021
I am a mushroom in the woods
My home a rotten log
Damp collecting in my hood
Abide in quiet fog.

Flustered mice scurry by
Their tales chase close behind.
Weathered trees grow old and die,
I do not think to mind.

I am dying, I am death,
I eat those come before.
Mushrooms have no need for breath,
I love my forest floor.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
Stand at the precipice, trace the edge.
Press your body into the wall of stone behind you.
Close your eyes.
Lean out.
The wind rushes forward to catch you, but too late.
You fall.
The atmosphere cuts through your clothes, your skin.
Tumbling naked before God,
suspended only in time, the trees below stretch out their
bony fingers to catch you.
Life and death crash violently together, their impact
ripping through your body, tearing you limb from limb.
Open your eyes. Retreat.
It is not your time to fall into flight.
One day, death will give you wings, and you will rise
beyond yourself.
Not yet. Stay, a little longer.
Life must have its way.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
Why must sleep evade me?
A thing of rest, arrest the soul.
Restless beauty, cold, untold.
A lie, shapeless mass meanders by
and as I sleep, the truth unfolds:
when I sleep the colors leak,
the colors slip and fade.
They break and play around my bed.
The shadows on my walls
are not angry, they are tame.
The shadows laugh, they play a game.
They reach and rake their playful claws
against my skin.
They take my mind.
Faking lines to keep me tired but always lying
to keep my flying thoughts from breaking free.
I am not free.
The walls, they trap me in dumb slumber,
passing seconds beyond number
while I scream and shake and rake
my fingernails across the door inside my mind.
My mind, mindlessly reeling.
Blindly feeling for some peeling hole,
a hole out of the wholly unrelenting crevice,
wherein a menace waiting for a certain slip,
sliding into sickness, into sleep.
The moments before sleep are bleak.
Monsters on the floorboards creep and creak.
No way to bolt the door, still unsure,
where sleep takes me and what for?
I am restless, my mind creeps.
It knows, I know, I must soon fall to sleep.
Madeline Hicks Apr 2021
We call her Space Girl.
Isn’t it romantic to walk among the stars?
She paces the Milky Way
as we sing to her seclusion.
Isn’t it romantic to be apart?
To be a being trapped in the beauty of the night sky?
Shooting stars dance in her eyes, brimming over with sparkling tears.
What a beautiful thing, this space girl.
What a thing to be loved.
Space is cold, and her frozen heart is like a diamond to the world below her.
She cannot hear the songs being sung for her.
Space girl, beautiful star, shine for us.
When your light goes out, we will find another.
Our beautiful space girl.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
Every day the world is running.
Keep its pace, don't dare to lose.
Catch the rush, can't see what's coming,
So I slump to tie my shoes.

Lost in moments, stampede of feet.
Hierarchy crumbles, no glue.
Ignore the poor, fight the elite.
No time to tie your shoe.

Scamper for scraps and match the fray.
Scurry on or pause to die.
Push to the promise, "better day"
With no rush, no shoes to tie.

We're all tired. The fight's too loud.
Look down. See people, broken.
They tried to stop, escape the crowd,
Shoes untied and cries soft-spoken.

It's not done with them, you or me.
The world moves on despite you.
Stop for the broken, hear their plea.
Kneel to tie their shoe.
Madeline Hicks Jan 2021
Winter turns the skin to ash.
Darkness creeps within.
Parched for light, a lightning flash,
any hope is sin.

Sinking soul, like sinking snow,
heavy tread crush down.
All is rushing, quiet now,
colored leaves all brown.

There is stillness found in pain,
Suffering's embrace.
Empty shell seeks quiet, sane.
Lie, disguised in lace.

Darkness wants to interlope.
Crawl the other way.
Seek the agony of hope.
Live another day.

Empty grave croons for her pet,
her skeleton to hold.
Her lullaby is gentle yet,
Ominous and cold.

Winter turns my skin to ash,
sunshine I've forgot.
How can I be so bold or brash?
To be what I am not?

The sun will rise again, someday,
Maybe I'll live to see.
A kindly voice may softly say,
"Frozen soul, be free."

— The End —