Fear for a child is very different to the adult and exactly the same the child inhabits another decade, in the past, another life before they knew they were who they become the child wets the bed because she misses her mother who is beautiful, ethereal, slender and absent the smell of her still lingers […]
Why and when did people stop being interested?
as kids we would sit on benches and talk about our pain
there seemed then, such a mercy in the air
it hung like cobwebbed dew around us and
despite the hardships we bore, our friends were
our succor
Why and when did people stop being interested?
and grief was labeled an annoyance?
why does growing-up mean we no longer write
poems like this
do we no longer feel the same
or just hide it away?
and if it is hidden how does it stay so
with the swell and the surge and the blistering salt
I hear rain falling into a tin can somewhere
and briefly I remember eating out of cans in summer
my lips sticky with apricot
it was a luxury then and my grandmother carefully
spooned each peachy globule out and added ice-cream
I hated the taste of ice-cream and I loved
the feeling of lying high in a big tree smelling apple leaves
in those days
when tragedy struck
we children who are called resilient
had the hope or the armor of youth
and the cherish of our friends
I saw her running toward me across the fields separating our houses
her red hair and freckled face red with exertion
we ate stale cucumber sandwiches left over from her mother’s
garden party and she held my hand in her own
clammy seedy palm
as if I were a starfish
I told her of my disappointments and the ache in my chest
all those who had forsaken and gone their own way
with the wisdom of child she wrinkled up her eyes against the sun
told me what I needed to do was pretend I didn’t care a damn
because one day you’ll grow up and nobody will be able to hurt you
I held onto that advice like a piece of paper framed in my chest
but it wasn’t true it wasn’t true
and I wonder where she is now
if she has children
if she is the same kind of mother she was as a friend
if I could see her again I would say
thank you for giving me the hope to get to this point
maybe it wasn’t true, maybe adults fool themselves into
thinking they are not children with ageing hearts and
brittle bones
maybe being an adult is harder than any childhood
because you don’t have afterwards to dream of
and the future as yet unsummoned
with all your magic and all your wistfulness
seen through the eyes of someone not old enough
to know the reality
I would tell her don’t tell your children the truth
let them dream as we did just a bit more
where I can still hear my grandmother knocking over pots
as she makes an apple pie and the smell
of summer is all about us in a haze
and your red hair makes mine look blonde
and your freckles tan your legs whilst mine remain blue
and your hand in mine is the first hand of friendship
I would thank you for running when I called
because nobody has run since and I suspect
adults have ways of doing things
us children never quite understand
I’m thinking if I could choose a side
I’d go through time and clasp your wrist and run
into the high grass fields out the back and where
nobody would find us
not even ourselves
years from now
Midnight, Monday 15th October is the deadline for submitting art/writing/poetry, this is an important, very timely project at a critical stage in history, your voices need to be heard!
Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
Writers and artists will retain the publishing rights to their individual submitted pieces. Indie Blu(e) will retain the rights to the collection We Will Not Be Silenced.
Pieces accepted for the Anthology may be used in whole or in part to promote the Anthology. All writers and artists will be appropriately credited in all promotional materials.
Should the royalties from sales of the Anthology exceed the costs of publishing and promoting the Collection, 70% of the royalties above these costs will be donated to organizations that support survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Bruised But Not Broken, Whisper and the Roar, Indie Blu(e), and Blood Into Ink are joining forces to publish an anthology about the lived experience of sexual harassment and assault. We believe that it is more important than ever before that more voices speak out and reclaim their strength by owning their survival stories. All contributors, female and male, can submit up to three pieces of creative work- these can include; Poetry, Prose, Essay, Short Fiction, Prose, or original Artwork, but should be limited in length (under 1,000 words) considering that this is an anthology. You will be notified if your work is accepted. Please do not consider nonacceptance as any diminishment of your experience, but as with any publishing venture, we must try to fit the individual pieces together into a strong whole.
All submissions should be sent to bloodintoink2017@gmail.com by midnight, Monday, October 15, 2018.
Please re-blog and get the word out.
She is nude
Dearticulate
Her nipples graze the passage of her downfall
Blood is dry and hennaed between her thighs
Who stand witness
To aborted possibility cut short
Held glistening above her in crucifixed parody
She will never bear life
It is not her weft and the thick choker around her neck
Tightens as reminder
If she grows swollen it will be from loss not gain
No feeling of a child pushing its way out
Only the deadening cold taste of metal on her skin
A doctor’s “tut, tut” and rough handling, his voice a graze
Staining her inevitable socially affixed shame
She stares out of a small window
Paint pealing like tears on the empty sill
Where a bird sits sheltering from rain
She thinks of him cutting his way into her with flint eyes
Hands around her throat, pulling her apart
A flashlight douses darkness, shining on blood and her hand
Reaching out
She is empty now
Passion snuffed, an ember no longer close to surface
She is an arroyo dried and crusted over
She is a gourd grown without seed
Disappointment is her meal, she is a featherless bird on wire
Dried empty by sun and rinsed of music
Before this, her watermelon body swayed in water-sprinklers
Feasting on her abundance and possibility
All that would be, all that would be
Is laid waste
Tumbleweed and Joshua tree
Punishment and consequence
The rapist will return at night to his wife and
Three blonde children
She will recover from her tears and cuts
Even the shame of feeling his soil enveloping her
But she will never
Never
Forget what he took in miscarried act
What would happen if we swapped vision?
The fridgidity of growth or a certain constraint
Because if you split my casing I would possess less chance
My surround would envelop your shadows and night cross twice
For women have a shorter life and a longer one
Small boned with narrow shoulders and deep set eyes
Stretching barren like a long road through desert
If she could turn the knife around
Press it gently against his steady pulse
Cut out the evil as he removed her chance
To fill her arms
With life
The teacher hadn’t enjoyed teaching in a long while
ever since her notions and reality rubbed against one another
exploding the myth she held in teaching college, of making a difference
her students
whom the administrators asked her to refer to as clients
wanted to pay for a degree, not to learn
we don’t have time to study they lamented
we are too busy with everything else which is, so much more important
the students
did not respect her because she earned less than
they believed they would earn in a few years time
she wanted to say DREAM ON but it was no longer acceptable
to tell the truth
especially with college administrators
(who were paid well, to shuffle papers from desk to desk)
watching in the wings
she recalled why
she had wanted to be a teacher
at eight she’d been sent to a foster home
where the ‘father’ decided to show and tell
using his fingers in wrong positions
she ran away and lived
underneath a bridge for the night
listening to the stars wink on and off
and the weave and fall of the world
the next day they found her, dirty and lost
spanked her for making up lies about being abused
and sent her to another foster home
this time the mother
starved her lean
told her she was fat and ugly
when she hardly weighed in
got her to clean and cook and scrub
she preferred that kind of reality
it didn’t involve lies it was honest in its
taste of cruel
when summer was over and she returned to school
a new teacher had begun work
she had the faraway eyes of a dreamer
and her voice was soft like bird song
without saying a word she knew the children who
had been neglected and abused
she’d encourage them often and whisper in their ears
this may seem like this is all there is
but there’s so much more!
one day you will be free to escape your confines
you can shrug off your sadness and become
anything you want
so when the time came for her to age out of the system
she didn’t bring flowers and a card for her foster-mother
instead she packed her single bag and left before
morning showed in the sky
the room was bare and emptied but somehow
it didn’t look so different to when she’d lain there
trying to take up the smallest space
funny that we can inhabit a place for so many years and
when we leave it’s like we were never there
a wraith who didn’t get heard or couldn’t
break out of her little mincing trap of potted meat
she hated the flabby jowls and empty eyes
of those who pretended to keep
her safe
being old enough now to look after herself she
enrolled in teaching college hoping one day
she could reach a child who sat at the back of class
with dirty socks and a mouth full of regret
but time moves on and things change even as they stay the same
kids become hardened, demanding, insolent
hurry up, please it’s time!
parents throw expectations like rocks and call educators
pathetic losers who can’t do, so they teach
she wondered
is cruelty a vein, like in a rock
inherited over time to savage and destabilize
our yearning for safety?
standing there, in her cheap hose and one good pair of shoes
the scuff blacked out by polishing
she saw in the sassing faces of her classroom
a loss of care for changing the world
her own longing to reach through time and alter
one person’s trajectory lost
in the hustle bustle of uncaring formula
spitting out diplomas and marching forward
not thinking at all
about what they have to learn
Written for World Teacher Day. In appreciation of teachers.
It was raining the day the movers truck pulled up
piling furniture into the back, exposed to wet streets
everything dirty and unfamiliar
when you take your safety out of its box
when you unlatch your secrets
and expose the insides of a locket
sticky mouths seek to further that exposure
until nothing of your peace remains
but the belly of your secrets on display
as if you were sitting in class without underwear
as if the abuse etched in your soul were a t-shirt
as if his fingers weren’t in the dark but had been
dipped in luminescent paint and everywhere they went
left their grimy imprint / yet you think
this horror may have been the very best thing
as wretched as exposure may taste
at least it wouldn’t be a case of disbelief
how many women does it take?
for one person to not hesitate
how many must say;
he did this / that happened / we are not okay
because of this / why do I have to prove / with gore
and soiled soul / the truth / why isn’t it sufficient that I say
why why why
did he lay a hand on me?
how many women does it take?
a juror in the Bill Cosby case disclosed the reason for his guilty verdict;
I believed he was guilty because he said he had drugged girls
hearing it from the horses mouth got my vote
are we bidding on a horse? Did you check the inside of his mouth?
what of the SIXTY women who spoke?
their voices do not warrant proof?
were people just speaking words?
to deaf sign posts stating;
move on / get over it / don’t make a fuss / why should we believe you?
one person has lied before / you must be lying / that’s our automatic default
what hope then
for one girl?
one single soul
violated in the dark
of a house when all is moved out
and she is left inside a shell, within a shell
the echoes of trucks taking memories
somewhere else
how many women does it take?
to be heard.
I said no and you said yes
The first time was before I can remember
adults do not have dominion over children’s souls
but that’s what happens when you touch a child and cause her to be unwhole
the second time was in nursery school so I suppose your foray of my body had begun
as I emulated what was done
in the back of a toy caravan with my pretend boyfriend and he liked it a lot
made me feel dirty though, I did not know what that meant at the time
seeded a doubt in the core of my person, like a rod of copper slowly turning green
the third time I lay face down on a dirty carpet and three boys played marbles across my back
they got the idea from a porno mag their father hadn’t hidden very well
and their kid sister watched from the doorway, and I told her with my eyes, go to your room or you will be next
I said no and you said yes
it became as normal as something bad can be, I wanted to see her, so I had to cross the gauntlet and you were the gatekeeper
nobody believes you when it is easier to disbelieve and go on thinking respectable people don’t lie
you taught me to hate games shows as they were our background noise
and grandma would come in laughing and I’d see the guilt in her eyes
sacrifice the daughter, sacrifice the child, sweep the dirt underneath the bruises of generations
at nine I fell in love for the first time with a boy who wiggled above me but he of all, respected my desire to be unmolested and we hung upside down from the monkey puzzle tree holding hands
I said no and you said yes
James Brown was your name like the singer, and you didn’t take no for an answer
you climbed my bunk bed and pulled down your pants and if the door bell hadn’t rung you would have got your way
I wonder who came after me and if they were saved by the bell?
I said no and you said yes
yes yes yes you know you want this
no no no I really don’t
but you asked for it, you tempted me, you flirted, you caused me to have a hard-on, this is YOUR FAULT
I kissed a boy in the garages outside school and it felt dirty and wrong because it reminded me of what others had done
before I made decisions of my own
I said no and you said yes
I felt guilty about touching myself because of the Jahovah witnesses and the Mormons and the teacher who stapled my confession together and said we won’t talk of it
when I tried to tell her, this is what happened to me
and you didn’t feel guilty about playing yatzee and karatee on your father’s bed with the nylon sheets and the little bobbles they made when you made a tent and put your fingers in
and you didn’t feel badly when you lied and said you would only touch and instead you went too far and before I knew you were pinning me against a table
I said no and you said yes
children who are violated don’t always know what’s best for them
they are broken and they are scattered and they are stomped on and they hate how they look when the light is on
but they want to fit in and they want to be normal and sometimes in trying they get it all wrong
the neighbor told my parents; your little girl is using bad words and teaching my boys how to curse
and I said fucking hell what does it matter?
but it did, it mattered a lot, to stay in the confine of childhood and not grow up
because growing up meant it was real and you had to deal with it and whilst you were a child
nobody believed it could happen anyway so you could pretend it did not
I said no and you said yes
yes yes yes I know you want to
no no no I really don’t
and my second boyfriend said he wouldn’t go too far
but he did and he did and he did
and I ran through the streets holding myself up and I shouted to the trees that had fallen because of the high wind
why do people pretend? because I didn’t understand and it was a language impenetrable
but I was not … impenetrable
I was just a place of conquer
I wanted to find a lock and keep myself closed
but they kept battering down the door one after the other
because patterns are sometimes all we have to show
for the cycle of abuse
I said no and you said yes
the last time was in a public street
dragged off and soon the roads diminished and the woods were thick
he moved like a silver fish cutting his way into my secrets
I lay staring at the knife
he told me, I won’t cut you if you are nice
I was very, very nice
no no no
yes yes yes
the policeman said; I have to ask, it’s my job, did you want to have sex with this homeless man?
and I pulled up my torn skirt and my ripped hose and my shredded blouse and my dismembered bra and my bloody underwear and I said
if you can even ask that question
you will not recognize justice if it comes
no no no
I said no and you said yes
the last time and the first time and all the rest
when children become girls, become women, become less
than the worth that is owed them
yes yes yes !
TheFeatheredSleep 