"nightlight" poems
Tell me I'm not this. The blue began to flood
inside a room once painted black. Tell me I don't
see this. The orb of morning peering its start right to
my eyelids that can't even close. Tell me I don't hear
this. Birds chirping for sunrise, playing lightly as my
lullaby. Tell me I'm dreaming. My leg still twitches,
seven in the morning, because I'm afraid I'll lose myself
before dawn. Shedding emotion in fast waves of flight,
tell me I didn't run through time, making stars out
of daylight. Orange in the sky, and not from shy
headlights in insomniac cars. Yellow, making its fellow
opening for my uncomforted sleep, not a nightlight like before,
no. Tell me I'm not this.
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 10:19 AM UTC
As the shape all sun
tore up the curtain
of blood and ululation,
everything in Tunisia,
as stricken by a wand,
came to a standstill,
and slipped away
from the senses -
Even rivers stopped.
Medjerda* froze
halfway
through the descent
to his destination,
as he realized
he’d been making a fatal error:
pouring forth all his passion
into the ocean.
So he stopped,
retracted his course,
re-collected himself,
and started flowing backward,
toward
the source
in the Atlas
that had bidden him
farewell.
In his spear head
there was a design:
start a new chaos
in the valley,
in which there would be
a sweet-water lake
and sailors drunk
with sunbeams, sweat
and pleasure.
Butterflies would flutter
around the scent of mint
and bluegreen rosemary.
Sweet Moon to Sweet Lake
would come, unannounced,
In the rays of the nightlight
of the fluttering night
to watch her self
shoot
the scene
of representation.
The river, now swimming
in his own water,
carried the sky on his shoulder,
while an ant and a grasshopper,
holding a basket together,
watched the new scene.
As the figure all sun appeared ,
reason melted;
imagination
her hazel eyes opened.
*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.
© LazharBouazzi, June 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016
Jun 16, 2016 at 1:35 PM UTC
I'm a soldier in the nightlight revolution
I'm fighting the nightmares that haunt your dreams
The monsters in your closet
And the Boogeyman under your bed
One outlet at a time
I'm a silent alarm that vibrates your covers
When older brothers come in after bed time
To cover your face in shaving cream
Dip your hands in popcorn bowls of warm water
Or just slap you in the face
Sometimes they're not that subtle
I know when there is a tooth under your bed
Or reindeer on your roof
I've got a motion detector to keep step fathers at bay
While your mother's asleep
I'm his grave digger and his crypt keeper
Taking his skeletons out of the closet
And laying them in the middle of the floor
That man won't call on you anymore
I'm a hug when all you need is a handshake
And a hold-you-all-night when all you need is a kiss on the cheek
I don't do half-ass
When things go bump in the night I bump back
Never fear to close both eyes when you sleep
Dream of fairy tales, Prince Charming
Dream of Maid Marions
Waiting for your touch
Don't fear the reaper he fears me
I am a soldier in the nightlight revolution
Armed with so much more than illumination
I crawl through the cracks in the closet door
Make their shadows cast pictures of rainbows on your wall
The Boogey Man runs from Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris runs from me
Please rest easy
Let the night take you for all it has to offer
Through star lit skies and rain filled clouds on magic carpets rides
Ocean floors and clown fish in little yellow submarines
Rain forests with koalas and parrots and panda bears
Son never fear for what the night brings near
The nightlight revolution is here
Throw your dream catcher away I will hand craft each one
Take the lavender out of the window sill
Don't leave the door cracked
You've got me
I'm here
We're all here
Soldiers of the nightlight revolution
And we will not sleep til you're awake
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 2:17 PM UTC
~♢~☆~♢~
A kiss of breath
This delight,
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars.
To kiss the breath within
each moment
Free from introspection,
doubt and regrets.
It is here, I yearn to dwell.
No fear of neglect.
No fear of offense.
No fear of fear.
Yet, ever vigil,
to a slight variance of mood.
Of circumstance.
Of changes that determine
outcomes and future.
Fear of loss.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of fear.
I succomb to this perception.
Live in accordance
within the rules and structure
that appear to maintain order
to each of my days
Yet I await, with anticipation...
To kiss the breath within
each moment
This delight.
To inhale twilight.
Ride the nightlight to the stars
~♢~☆~♢~
Copyright © 2014 Christi Michaels. All Rights Reserved.
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 4:12 AM UTC
And in the whitest dark I
Ask for only that
To keep
Me there, for just the span of
Your snowglobe smile
That aftershock nightlight in the
Afternoon heat
Wait for me there
With your bayonet heart
Hands
Shoulders
Beneath the powerline
Wire, asleep but for me
Awake but for
The rest
And doze after
Half-light dreams and
Headrush spotlights that
Blur and
Mar my
Little love frame
Bright night air, fill
Every niche
Till whole is all
And all is this
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
The lone eagle makes its
solo journey over the vast horizon
I can see my flag in
the setting sun
as the lemon halo of fire
becomes a vivid pomegranate red,
the turquoise sky darkening
into a sea of navy blue
and wispy, white clouds
are hovering over us like
spirits in the universe
Lady Liberty,
overlooking the evening
of the New York Harbor,
displays her lit up torch like a
cosmic nightlight
She forever sheds light over
weary Americans
to remind us to
still dream the American dream
but that vision often seems
so out of our common reach
Uncle Sam has put on his nightcap,
a tuckered, old man is he
The crickets are chirping,
singing to me their strange lullabye
as I think I'll call it a night
Goodnight, America, Goodnight
Nov 14, 2010
Nov 14, 2010 at 10:33 AM UTC
In a strange mood - see/write art
in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^
in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.
knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.
a ***** well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.
^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell
Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
This is a friendly reminder to watch the calendar and mark the days
Times flies faster than you realize and some things are worth remembering
This is a friendly reminder to take some time for yourself
Listen to your thoughts and learn to understand whats going on in your own head
This is a friendly reminder that your parents aren’t stupid
Sometimes they really do know what they’re talking about
This is a friendly reminder to not judge a book by its cover
Smiles can hide pain and anyone can look beautiful for a day
This is a friendly reminder to write your paper during the day
Don’t lose sleep over things you could easily put to rest
This is a friendly reminder that every story is a coin
There are always two sides and someone is always getting richer
This is a friendly reminder that rainy days are made for lovers
So hold her close and love her while the sun looks away
This is a friendly reminder that sometimes your eyes hear better than your ears
Liars deceive with their mouths not their hands
This is a friendly reminder that distance is only as far as you make it out to be
Someday you will be together and thats all that matters
This is a friendly reminder to do good things
Not to be remembered but because the world needs it
This is a friendly reminder that some people look up to you
The next generation will always be a product of the generation before
This is a friendly reminder that love is not about possession
She does not belong to you she is her own person and thats why you love her
This is a friendly reminder to keep your gas tank full
You never know when you’ll have to leave and there isn’t always time to stop
This is a friendly reminder that skin is only meant to protect whats important
The skeleton is only a vessel to hold it all together
This is a friendly reminder to show her you love her
Even if you haven’t told her yet never make her second guess it
This is a friendly reminder that boats without anchors are useless
Even the smallest of storms will sink them with ease
This is a friendly reminder that all it takes is a nightlight
To illuminate the darkness under your bed and scare the monsters away
This is a friendly reminder that some girls only last as long as the season
They are not worth writing about or looking back on
This is a friendly reminder that even the stars burn out
If nothing lasts forever make forever last
~W.C.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 2:17 PM UTC
I used to send you goodnight poems,
Each and every night.
And you would post them on Snapchat,
To serve as a nightlight.
But now you have forsaken me,
I cry my life away.
I miss and hate and still love you,
Though you threw me away.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 1:39 AM UTC
waking
newly human
strange and soft;
pinpricks, feelings -
the crawlings around inside you
shiver as your skin becomes real
a nightlight for daytime sleeplessness
carry the seas inside yourself
like people:
walking barefoot
drinking sunstreams
and braving the dark red nights
hark, choir voices, still
slurring miss you discrepancies
howls in empty skies
wolves die
a misunderstanding of your insides
bones
more sand than rock
crumble at a press too hard
on this,
last day of your first life
hung on a boy’s fingers
the edge of a cliff
taste the water in your nerve endings dragging you home
you splinter,
and you rise -
when the bruise blooms, you shine
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 5:21 PM UTC
Nightlight is waiting, deadly quiet,
Waiting for you to see,
Nightlight is heavy, rich, aromatic,
And pulling you closer to me.
Bright points scattered on velvet sky,
Each one a burning star,
We see the same lights, you and I,
Whether we’re near or we’re far.
We’ll share Cassiopeia,
As she follows her path round,
Never getting closer, but never farther,
Round and round, in silent sound.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 4:41 PM UTC
Over-born and too-
Bright for us treacle-bound.
We'll lay sections
Before us--
But I'm stuck-with-
Sasquatch oaks; --ginkgo golems
If only clouds could lift
The moon which frequents
Venus-speech at night.
Needless for dormant-- endings
We've been untwisting,
Thoughts trapped tightly
In rules-
And it's us again,
That can see or forget the darkness,
When keyboards and pens
Tame the light.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
3 may 17
sincerely hoping to tear this page out.
i promised myself i would never write about you because i know that once this pen grazes paper, the thought of you will be permanently engraved somewhere, and although not physically, but mentally and emotionally in the depths of my brain, figuratively.
my outlets these days are quite scarce. i tore out my sheets and tried to erase the thought of you, of our intimacy. but what i've ceased to comprehend is that it's not that simple. i can change my sheets, remove my posters, switch my nightlight, remodel my whole room, but, that doesn't change it. change the fact that you still consume my thoughts like a virus, spread throughout my body, filling my core to the brim with inadequacy.
i love you, i hate you.
it is a constant cycle of indecisiveness that floods me with feelings of deep desire, love, and infatuation, to the less constant but still present, feelings of rage, anger, pain, and resentment projected towards you.
i can't wait until the day.
the day when you are either out of my life for good...
or
prove to me that love still exists.
-v.la
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 11:58 PM UTC
I remember as a child
I wanted a nightlight because the darkness was frightening and forbidding
But then you showed me that there are more terrifying things than darkness
I remember as a child
I used to pull the covers up at night glaring at the closet afraid of the boogey man
My small body would tremble as I waited in the darkness…certain that an ominous presence was watching
But then you taught me that there are things more evil than the boogie man
… and they don't hide in closets
I remember as a child
Walking in the rain and the sight of a small slug, slimy and slick on the sidewalk was enough to paralyze me in disgust
But then I was left alone with you and I discovered that there are things much more disgusting than a slug
You left me in the dark with no light switch
You taught me to watch for monsters in the daylight
You held my face so I couldn't escape
You were the thief in the night stealing from me what I didn't know I had
Robbing me of the entitlement of innocence, feelings of safety and trust
Labeled a "survivor",
You left your oppressive sun burning in my sky
But at least I'm not afraid of the dark anymore
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
What does a nightlight do?
What is it?
Not the children's kind
No
The person
A light in the night
The warm lamp in the dark room
The one who hugs you when all seems lost
The one who, when lost, cannot seem to find themselves
So the darkness needs to unite
We need to unite
To rekindle the nightlight's bright
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 12:10 AM UTC
I need to whisper sweet somethings to nothing of importance,
Spell out rose petal kisses up the arms of Morticia Adams,
I need to take a romantic walk through a graveyard,
Sit in the dark and think of white,
I could always fall up a hill and roll to the top,
The elevator down eventually hits the basement and that’s what I’m counting on,
Pinky finger through thumb, I’m counting.
Other thumb through pinky finger, I’m counting.
Sometimes you have to eat your Johnny Walker and drink your dinner.
Today, cigarettes… tomorrow, the world.
The convenient thing about tomorrow is it still can occur 2 years after yesterday.
Don’t count on it.
Tomorrow, the world… Friday, a whole wheat bagel and coffee.
I think I might garner a relationship with vampires, built on trust.
Turn off the t.v.
Love is a nightlight.
Love is a nightlight…
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 5:34 PM UTC
Behind the house with the fragmented windows
and the corroded pipes
and the cobwebs and ages under the stairs,
she buried herself
under the earth and grime
until the roots contained her decayed soul
and encased around her brittle scarred limbs.
Until the dirt crept down her windpipes,
until her tarnished lungs were suffused
with ashes and dirt.
Until roots replaced her veins and
smothered her cracked ribcage.
Behind the house with the fragmented windows,
under the grass and gravel,
that was rougher than
her mother’s dispirited retorts,
where she once capered and skipped, and never thought
would become her grave.
By the ethereal creatures she played with
in her younger and more susceptible years.
Dig up her bones but leave her soul.
Who would ever want cruel contaminated beauty
as a periphery for such a fouled soul?
It was when she stopped falling asleep on the way home,
when her nightlight ceased to make her feel safe,
when a lover’s unlawful kisses replaced her family’s amity,
when a lover’s lethal passion parted her lethal loneliness,
when home became a person and not a place,
was when she buried herself
behind the house with the fragmented windows.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
No. Not at all, in fact.
I really don’t mind
A pitch-black room.
What I am scared of,
Is my dark.
The dark that swallows my vision
When I lay down at night to sleep.
This deep, dark dreamland
Is far more severe
Than what any nightlight could fix.
Sleep is a tsunami.
I am a swimmer in the middle of the storm.
With each paddle, I am taken out and under.
Insomnia is my buoy.
The constant rattle in my head
Reminds me of the tempest to come.
Nightmares are like sharks.
They eat and gnaw on my thoughts
Shredding my soul to pieces.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 11:14 PM UTC
Do you remember me?
Do you know who I am?
You don't remember these soft drown eyes
Staring into the vacant depths
Of your glazed over eyes
Donut wholes on your sunk in face
Mother, I'm that 13 month old baby
You abandoned and never looked back on
I'm the nuisance in the back of your head
Wishing you would wake up and feed me
Change my soiled diapers
The way you should change your habits
Mother, pleas I'm begging
I'm crying tears of snowflake shadows
I need you yet you're not there
You're two inches from my face
Crashing into couch cushions
Like suicide bombers
Needle stil stuck in your arm
Filling your veins with a substance
That prevented you from loving me
Hello...mother
Do you remember me?
Do you know who I am now?
I wanted you to love me
Tell me bedtime stories
Keep the nightlight on
Long enough for me to fall asleep
Unafraid of what the shadows hold
Tuck me in and kiss me goodnight
Like the moon itself
Every night to the rest of the world
I want to be your world
Drenched in your loving moonlight
But no, the drugs you overdosed on
Prevented you from doing just that
And you still haven't learned your lesson
You called me several times
Telling me you love me
That you're sorry for leaving
But within the 5 minutes
It took you to choke your tongue
To say even one of those words
You sail away on that kite
Crash immediately into my heart
Causing missile words to bombard my walls
Calling me worthless, pathetic, and a waste
Hello...mother
Please remember me!
Please remember who I am!
I'm the baby you refused to hold at birth
I'm the last child of four
You wish you would have aborted
1 month prior to my concieving
Hello...mother
The late night hours of needles and pills
Powdery white lines cut like a chef
Must have erased me from your life
And if I could bleed every drop of your blood out
I'd carve canyons in my wrist
Let loose the dams
Drown in the wake
I don't want to be your son
I want to be the child of four you never had
Hello...
Forgive me for this
I know you don't remember me
I know you don't know who I am
But I hate you
I can only thank you for making me a poet
Giving me this curse
Because I'm no longer your puppet
Or your voodoo doll
With 12 needles in his chest
I'm the kid you will never know
So this greeting shall be as strangers
You never cared to know me
So this farewell shall be as strangers
Goodbye...
...Mother
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
Tears…so many tears after my best friend
died. I was 17. Light brown, coarse hair from my
puppy snuggled up to me each night. Crumbs
from many late-night dinners, coupled with
doing homework until the sun peaks
through the sleepy darkness.
My mom’s old white tennis shoes, falling
apart at the seams. Bobby pins.
Snoozed alarms. Text messages I didn’t want
to say goodnight to. Screams,
from that nightmare that felt all too real.
Tears…so many tears. The nightlight I kept
on ever since then. Books. Stories. Adventures.
Gatsby’s blind love. Harry finally defeating his demons.
The matching sock I didn’t have time to find. Dust.
Lots of dust. The phone call when her grandmother died.
My wandering mind dreaming of what the future might hold. Poems,
written and read. The dizzy night I told you
“stay,” and I let you have what you
wanted. Then you told me, “I’m not ready for
a girl like you.” Tears…so many tears.
My mother’s constant disapproval of
me, and my time spent
wasted in her hazel eyes.
Countless nights I wished you
laid with me under my cold lavender sheets.
Misplaced earring backings. Baby blue nail polish dripped.
Bittersweet dreams of a future with you. My puppy’s hidden
treats that he forgot once existed. Phantoms.
Monsters. Phone calls and Facetime’s that felt like
a moment frozen, but lasted hours. That bright pink
Homecoming dress my mother said I looked
heavy in. Tears…so many tears. Darkness. Months later when you
came back, sleeping peacefully next to me. Forgiveness. Hope.
All the boys I thought were worth my time. Love.
You.
It’s always been you.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 12:44 AM UTC
"fingerprint tracking technology"
articles are so foolish.
They can seek my fingerprints,
all they like
but it's my footprints
along the ashphalt by the shore-
it is those which will never fade.
They'll lead you to my place,
through my visceral dreams
and to the darkest places on earth.
And if you'll walk my path tonight,
you may also see the sea
looking black.
And if you've the right sorta soul,
At dark ocean waves
it'll wave back.
The sky yields no stars
but don't fret;
this was never to be a poem of beauty.
No, just of darkness,
and stars
that a midnight sky lacks.
I am less than honorable
My intent less than clean.
And the canker of my life?
Greater than you've ever seen!
Virtues; I have none.
Morals; I have none.
Light: I have one.
It's in the nightlight of her heart.
She follows me around
like a sweet haunting ghost.
Sometimes, i forget she is there
watching me, without thought.
I am a blank space to her;
For her.
A blank space to stare into.
I was her greatest gift, she once said.
I remember the way she said it,
All the words tender
and running together.
Yes; and with no voice. Only
the movement of lips
into silent sleeptalking mumbles
in my sleepwalking hours.
So my nightlight,
won't you come with me
and haunt me beside the shores once more?
My darling, remind me of how worthless I am
And let me rot in your arms.
(without fingerprints or footprints,
i could never touch your heart.)
Always, in her arms.
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 6:50 AM UTC
A full Moon on the horizon of a powder-blue sky
The gentle breeze of Dawn passes me by,
caressing my cheeks like a lost lover,
soft as the clouds which in the distance hover.
I turn around, my back to the Moon:
the melody of daybreak begins its silent tune.
The first gossamer threads of Dawn's embrace,
cobwebs of brightness, Light made of lace.
A lonely bird towards the Moon flies,
hoping in vain to stop its goodbyes;
and my romantic soul melancholically sighs,
attempting to imprint the image in my eyes.
As the sunrise ripens, a celestial fruit,
it robs the lunar ambience, grabbing its loot.
And it basks in the riches that it slowly steals,
in brilliant ombre shades, as the Moon - defeated - reels.
The night's companion quietly fades,
ethereal pallor on now greyish shades;
no more powder-blue, grey turns to white -
it's the bed of clouds, prepared for the nightlight.
You've done your job, illuminating the way,
to travellers and dreamers, lest they go astray;
Rest for a while, take a little break,
until Sun retreats - then you can awake'.
The Poets' Lamp, nocturnal glow,
you'll shine again, with stars in tow.
Aug 28, 2020
Aug 28, 2020 at 12:20 PM UTC
I could tell that you had smoked a cigarette
yesterday before I saw you because
your shirt smelled like smoke and
your lips tasted like
lung cancer. (I like to to pretend
that it doesn’t really bother me that
this is not the only connection
you have with my father.)
My parents, my sister, and you, my darling, all
have green eyes. Green like miniature
earths turning in space, like Lake Michigan capsizing,
like the summer leaves in the woods behind my house.
Sometimes I think that I’m more closely related to
my grandparents because when I
turned down the emeralds, I was given
sapphires to use as kaleidoscopes instead.
And, you know, my father called me a month ago and
wished me luck “in the big city” and I still
do not know if that means he knows
where I am or not; I have
not heard from my mother in over five years.
(I like to pretend that your relationship
with your parents is much easier than mine.)
Do you remember that time when you told me that
“everyone sins?”
I do not think that you took into account
the amount of which we all sin. (All sinners are equal,
but some are more equal than others.) Sometimes
I think that the Viking blood inside of me
makes sure that I identify with
the villains more than the heroes.
Sometimes I think that
you are the hero.
But, darling, there so many things I
tip toe around when it comes to you, and
I am not sure why—religion, politics; the
Chernobyl boy, the inked boy, my father, my mother; the
moths that live inside my gut, the layer of dust over my limbic system.
I wish that I had the words to say that I can never
be what you want, what my
family wants, what anyone wants.
I wish that I could tell you how I
think I am drowning in the in the gene pool,
how I am convinced that I’ve broken three bones
without actually breaking them, how I lay awake
at night, scared to death that my
dreamcatcher will stop working and that the
nightmares will finally catch up with me.
There are broken wishbones in my bed that
I keep as trophies of losing to luck and
blood stains on my clothes from all
the lambs that I’ve been forced to slaughter.
All I want to do is tell you why I prefer
cigar smoke to cigarette smoke
and how I would rather have you
quit all together than live another day knowing that
you’re dying faster than me.
But darling, I watched the world spin last night
when I opened my eyes and looked at you
looking at me, and for now, it’ll do. You
can be the nightlight in the corner of my room.
Wait for me in my chrysalis. Listen to my wings flutter.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 3:03 AM UTC
We never ****** on anybody’s ticking bed.
We didn’t even **** up, although we did. Who gives a **** about romance?
These days I am letting my mouth slide right off my face. Letting my fingers bleed
onto bathroom walls. Peeling my skin into the bathroom sink. My
brother complains about it. Tells me I need to be cleaner. I shower
everyday for two hours. You’re still sleeping in my hair, my
flesh is still crawling with your sweat. Please don’t think that I
ever held a door open for you. “Write about me.” Well, ok, **** you,
I’m not crying. I’ve never cried, except for that one time when my mother
threw my lunchbox at the wall. The lunchbox was shaped like a spaceship.
Now I know that she wasn’t mad at me, just at the sky
and how quickly it could change and how she wasn’t ready for it to change,
wasn’t ever ready for it to change. But I still liked that lunchbox. I don’t
eat much these days maybe because she broke it. I mean I no longer
have a home for my food, so what’s the point? Two weeks ago
the kitchen was dark and my feet were undressed and I was scooping
peanut butter out of the jar like a nightlight. It’s one of my top five
embarrassing moments even though nobody was there to watch me.
I watch myself so well. Also not well enough. Please tell me what I
look like. I want details, sometimes I think I want your face but
then I remember you’re still climbing the stairs like a ghost. I
almost let you be my ghost.
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 10:29 PM UTC