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 May 9 Nic Mac
amanda
if you can smile
as you pull the knife
out of your back
and choke down the blood
you coughed up,

does that mean you’ve grown
strong enough

or inhuman enough?
 May 9 Nic Mac
D
adios
 May 9 Nic Mac
D
i might be done writing here forever.

i'll miss you.
a note for really just one.
 Apr 2019 Nic Mac
tc
dark vs light
 Apr 2019 Nic Mac
tc
people say they’re afraid of the dark
i am the opposite
i am afraid of the light
light exposes
darkness conceals
shadows the parts of myself i cannot face in the mornings
you have to use the senses you so often neglect
listen to my voice
touch becomes beauty
and i am beautiful because you can feel me
in a way where you don’t need to see my physicality
because it exists in your palm
the image of me is yours to create
i am ready to be your canvas so please
paint me with the deepest shade of your kiss
splash me with hot breath
i am sticky from your sickly sweetness
we never have to turn on the lights
 Dec 2018 Nic Mac
Em MacKenzie
Happy belated birthday Mom,
I'm sorry it's two days late,
but I've been a bad daughter
and an even worse person.
You always told me not to go to your grave or put flowers on your headstone;
"I won't be under that ground," you'd say,
"and don't waste your money on flowers, I'll have no use for them where I'm going."
I still visit sometimes, and I do still bring flowers, but not nearly enough.
I know if I had been the one buried, you'd wear the grass down with your feet and then have the courtesy to plant some seeds.

Almost eight years later I still think about you everyday
and not a minute goes by where I don't miss you terribly.
What a cruel thing it is, to live a life where you're always missing someone.
To have so many things to say and receive no reply.

You would've been fifty seven this year.
I wonder how you would look as you got older, and sometimes, rarely, I forget what you looked and sounded like when you were here.
That's probably the worst part of it.

The first time I visited your grave was about a month or so after you had been buried,
the graveyard drowning in so much snow I actually visited the wrong headstone.
I'm sure Mr.Brown enjoyed the talk, though.
It was only after digging my bare hands through ten inches of snow and ice that I realized I was four spots down.
I then recognized your grave from the moonlight reflecting off the glass vases of yellow roses we had placed there during your funeral,
wedged in place with the snow hugging them tightly;
the roses frozen in time,
it was both beautiful and aggravating.
Good things funerals cost so much,
they should be able to have someone clean up the plot after the service.
I threw the roses out and gently tried to remove the vases:
the one with "wife" shattered in my hands and my frostbitten fingers picked each shard out from the snow.
I still carry a scar from that vase.
The one with "mother" on it remained in tact, I was just as gentle with it but it did not shatter.
You told me near the end that nothing in this world, nothing was powerful enough to ever have you taken away from me.
That vase sits on my dining room table to this day, nursing a reluctantly dying plant just as you'd want.
I don't think I'll ever have the green thumb like you did.

But I have everything else from you,
you always told me Kate was raised by your sister and that she was too much when you were so young,
"But you, Emily, you're MY daughter."
You said I was a godsend of a baby, never crying, content just to sleep,
and that I carried an old soul.
You laughed at how I always excelled at being alone as a child,
and you were so intrigued by my sense of imagination and creativity.
You always said you were the same when you were a kid.

So tell me, now that I'm older and I feel so alone all the time,
am I still you?
Were you this isolated and alien at my age now?
Did you carry the empathy to cry at little things you saw on the street or in a commercial,
so much so that you believe this world to be lost?
That you saw life as one big slap in the face?

I still try my best everyday to make you proud,
It breaks my heart constantly to think I didn't when you were here.
But life is cruel like that, and I was young and stupid and arrogant.
I know if you see my daily life,
you know I'm not 100% better,
and I know I probably never will be.
But I work hard, and I always say my "please" and "thank you"'s,
and I live by your example of always trying to help anyone in need.
It might not make up for the demons that I struggle with,
but atleast I still fight them, right?
I lost some years there where I should've died, and sometimes I wish I had,
but I didn't. I'm still here. I'm still trying.
And to be honest, it's not for me, or for my family, for love or sunsets, or dogs or any of the things that bring me up to a solid "content."

It's for you, because you taught me that's what you do in life.
You fight. You fight until your last breath.

I've thought this a million times in my head, but I'll say it now,
you were always right about everything.
As teenage girls, we challenge our mothers at every turn and decision,
convinced we are mature and capable of making decisions,
and then we say hurtful things when we don't get our way.
So you deserve to hear it, you were always right.

I wish I could tell you face to face.
I would tell you how much I miss you, more than either of us could've ever predicted.
I would tell you how blessed I feel to have had such an amazing mother.
I would apologize for judging you for the drinking,
I would tell you it took me forever to realize, but eventually I accepted my mother was human just like everyone else,
and just like everyone else, myself included, you made mistakes.
Above all else, I would tell you that I love you more than you'll ever know.

I'll be turning twenty-nine next month,
which means I have one year left of smoking.
I didn't forget my promise to you, I'll quit on my thirtieth birthday.
I'll continue looking out for my sister to the best of my abilities,
even though she can be impulsive and brash on occasion.
I'll continue to show empathy and kindness to as many people as possible, just like you would've wanted.
And finally, one day I hope to keep the promise I made to you so many years ago:
I promise to try and be happy.
Extremely personal write, but needed to get it out. If you're lucky enough to still have a mother, tell her you love her today and thank her for existing.
 Aug 2018 Nic Mac
tc
freedom
 Aug 2018 Nic Mac
tc
i tell myself
i do not need
to live in the
wild,
as a butterfly
or a wasp
or as a bird.
i tell myself
i do not need
to cascade the
skies, because
to fly around
your ribcage
feels like the
only freedom i
ever need.
i thought that
maybe i would
come back as a
sparrow one day
to show the world
i was joyful and i
was not afraid.
i tell myself
that my sandpaper
heart finally
met something
soft around the
edges, to teach me
that love heals,
helps tend to the
wounds i tried
to lick clean when
my tongue was
laced in acid and
i tell myself,
i must have done
something worthy
along my timeline
to be blessed with
arms coated in baby
powder and blankets
to shield me from
the rain, i tell myself
i do not need to
live in the wild to
be free, for your
ribcage is the freest
a bluebird can be.
 Jul 2018 Nic Mac
tc
july
 Jul 2018 Nic Mac
tc
TW: suicide / cancer / brutal imagery

july isn't a good month for me
it is a collection of all the things
i have had taken away. it is a
bitter winter chill through a
summer i do not get to enjoy.
july is lonely.
it breaks apart all the other months
like a pack of werewolves; it is
their alpha and i have six months
before everyday is a full moon
and my legs are tired of running
from it. i have six months to
enjoy the fresh scent of crisp air,
to feel the iciness of snow without
shivering through my skin. i try
to break out of this body, try to
knit myself a new one out of
preloved sweaters hoping their
stories will become my own so that
i may have a july worth talking about.
suicide happens all year round but
your suicide happened in july and
has happened every month in my
mind since. i have lost count of the
way i try to contact you to say
i'm sorry.
maybe my spiritual journey wasn't
my own; i convince myself the
universe will show me your face again
one day and i hope it is not in july.
people suffer from cancer throughout
everyday of the year but you suffered
in july. i watched the sunset through
hospital windows, smelt more chemicals
than fresh flowers, held back more
tears than my throat knew how to
swallow. has anyone ever drowned
without being submerged in water?
i have.
i imagined cracking my skull off the
glass confining you to this ward, to
this smell of microwave meals and
this buzzing of machines echoing
like an emergency and my heart is
on standby, i imagined it would give
the ward some colour because i am
so sick of seeing white.
and this july
this july,
i hold your hand as your treatment
continues. i do not feel the sun on
my face because you cannot feel it
on yours. i watch the sunset through
windows. carry the bodybag of my
soul around in "i'm fine" and "i'm okay."
i don't think my voice could drip
with any more sadness as i envision the
words cascading down glass panels
hoping if i spell it out for the world
to see, someone will stop and ask me
why i hate july, or at least,
if i'm okay.
the most honest, personal and deep poem i've ever written. i'm sorry for the brutality and the imagery.
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