New skin

I grew up knowing what cruelty was

it curled at the corners of day like

a well fed tiger.

Sometimes I did not think on it much

for I was preoccupied by my own

sense of emptiness and self pity or

just the song on the radio at that moment.

Years later I feel it

just beneath the surface like

new skin, flinty and unyielding, unfamiliar

and somehow horrifying

bleeding like a bruise

as yet unseen.

Maybe the brittle disappointment of

my ancestors, their sagas of

grief, shifting quiet loss, building

like ant hills awaiting flesh to

pierce with poison is my

only purpose.

There is shame in realizing

I am guilty of what I abhorred, this

softening violence, a compound fracture in

my psyche, alarming long held belief

I was kind

when there is no nice affability in

what I sometimes feel

only a wish to burn

deeply, leave charred and dead

those who would harm me or try

to fight, thinking me defenseless.

In that, I inherit the family tradition

of haters, long held like tarnished

shield, we have only endured by

cutting down those who would harm us

we are warriors without goodness

we fight sometimes because we like

the taste of spilt blood on our sorrowful lips

it is a necessary thing, I realize, that I am the last.

So when you tell me I am kind and good

do not use those platitudes so keenly

nor trust entirely, my motivation

I am every bit as wild as that feral

hungry, you bring in from the cold

who scratches you deeply, first

time you mistakenly take her purr

for pleasured trust

for I

know no such.

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Someone else’s rapist

You

someone else’s rapist

lean back in client chair

shadows of survivors indented behind

it is difficult

not to want to hurl you from that sacred place

screaming; You do not have the right! Haven’t you possessed enough flesh and soul?

I place one hand over the other, as if I am

wearing plastic gloves and submerging them in

hot dish-water, doing some kind of

domestic yoga move

instead of drinking or cursing or rising up with sword.

You are physically attractive, it might make people ask

why do you need to rape? Just like they ask; Why would he rape her?

Why did she wear that short skirt? All sorts of wrong-headed pronouncements

cluttering our throats with ire.

I have seen how women write, to prisoners like you

fascinated by the ‘bad boy,’ even marrying you

you, who would chop them into little red

pieces and eat them, if they only

could find a decent frying pan.

Maybe it is like having a tiger behind a cage

his heaving, ancient, lustrous fur, intoxicating sanity.

I do not pretend to understand

although I know we are strange, muddled creatures

the mechanisms of desire, who is to judge?

The one who wishes to be urinated on, beaten

savagely, tied up and left for dead, or

marry Ted Bundy on a Tuesday?

There are surely, limits, I think, as you

boldly express your hyperbole repentance

and I silently disbelieve your every word.

I am thinking; It’s therapy like this rotten apple, looking shiny on the outside,

that is dismal and false, chewing out the center of our profession

where sociopaths play with

good intentioned rules like

greedy children with plastic building blocks.

I have no doubt, if you were truly

alone with me and not

an emergency button away

hanging loosely from my slender neck

you’d bite me until my skin became

a map of welts and hurt, leaving a necklace of rose blooms, then

drive yourself through me like an

arrow, I will never forget the piercing of

and whilst you feel your pleasure in lies

I am disgusted that I have to bear witness

to your play acting, as surely no woman living

should have to hear anything you have to say

ever again.

There are times, being who I am

isn’t what I want and

I’d rather peal off this weary ‘caring’ suit

wear red tights with a monacle and no bra

drink peach schnapes at mid-day with one olive

my legs flung over afghan sofa

fingers pushing lovers between my legs.

But we become who we are, and I am

the psychotherapist who must at ten am see

rapists

as they abuse the system the way they

butchered women’s bodies

tasting the scars like livid memories

on their ugly thin lips of denial and delight.

I don’t ask you why you did it

I know as well as you, and do not want

to hear your false apologies, you are no more

repentant than the lion, who having eaten his

fill, will sit in the sun sated, licking his thick fur

clean.

I want to apologize to the women

I shall see later on

who inherit this contaminated ghost-world chair

though I clean it after you have left

your stink remains in my mind

as your poisonous choices infiltrate this supposed sanctuary

and I feel your hands on me like glue, as if you were not

slouching in front of me, but pealing

your clothes off and rushing your terror

in my face.

We are after all, only

a thin surface of respectability in a

hidden gleaming jungle of pretense,

if the lights were to dim

if the others forgot I was working late

one day, you’d quietly like a lynx, lock my door

and cut me to pieces with the

hatred in your emptied eyes.

I know, you see, what it feels like to have

a dagger thrust through your body, filled with damage

a mind of repulsion, set on repeat

the disgust creatures like you, leave women like me

to deal with, deep in our Kintsugi psyches.

This is why I sit here, knowing if I

turn you down, I lose my job , yet aware you will not

from me, receive favor or even, compassion

I do not have any.

I would, if I could

turn violence against you

damn you to torment yourself

but, I suspect that will happen one day

when you drop your soap, in the cinder-block showers.

if that makes me Old Testament

I’m okay with that

you see, I never signed up for victimhood

I carry a knife in my loose sleeve

longer than your worst horrors

you are deficient in your belief

you are still a menace, we have

already begun the war, you have already fallen

to our rebuke

if I’m judged for this, I will remind people

choices leave scars, as hunters do

and we who survive

will turn our scars outward

never again

let ourselves be lost

to the predator who thinks

he can outwit the deer

Gandhi said; An eye for an eye leaves

the whole world blind,

I have learned, I can see

in the dark.

Your misuse

hijacked amygdala

They can tell you

Because you’re not going to back down

You won’t sell your sisters for a side ways glance

You won’t burn your bra, you may need it to strangle someone

You have the same look

All of you

The ones with green hair and multiple piercings who say fuck off before you smile

The ones who rule the world behind the scenes and nod as their husbands slip inside

The ones who are glory and begotten and forgotten and eclipsed and insist

They still live

You can tell

Even as they spell it out in myriad ways

I am not your slave

You do not own me

But once I was hurt very badly

By my father, mother, brother, sister, best friend, neighbor, uncle, stranger

And I carry the brand around my throat

Once in a while when I lean over

You can see it quickening

I…

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Candice Louisa Daquin Reviews Sarah Doughty’s Just Breathe — Go Dog Go Café

One of the hardest things to do when reviewing a book is to read other reviews. I typically don’t because it can be intimidating or distracting. However, I was curious to know what others had thought of this series of books and interestingly more has been written about Sarah’s Earthen Witch Novels series than most […]

via Candice Louisa Daquin Reviews Sarah Doughty’s Just Breathe — Go Dog Go Café

Just like them

Apparently

there are rules

I’ve been told I can’t write about emotions

that refer to others pain or lives

in any way

because

how dare you take a person’s life and convey it

as a cheap writer of someone’s suffering

what a monster! What do you know?

I had better not post stupid photos or true thought

it’s trite & cruel like the worst of humanity

(or so they said … foaming at the mouth with vengeance in their throat )

saying certain things are off the table

without realizing

they weren’t about you / but this one is

 

sometimes I write about something that never happened

or occurred only in my mind

or felt like it did almost, not quite

or did but to someone else where-upon

I shine a light to diminish neglect

rarely is this clear, when it is

spelt out

that’s my right to speak without muzzle

it isn’t fabricated with thorns but

allegory & beseeching for a better world of kindness

instead of the easy hand of hate & scorn

but I’m tired

 

I’m really tired

of backlash against thought

of being told I’m shallow, unoriginal, borrowed or naive

that rules are preferable & if you quote

make sure it’s the Greeks or high fellow in poetic device

otherwise you’re just a stupid girl thinking you have a right

to inhabit quill

 

yeah

I’m not made of your thick hide or

snow-proof snarl

I don’t like fights, madness, melodrama

or people who thrive on cutting

into ribbons of beef jerky

I am not a bitch who gives as good as she gets

let others inherit that mantel

if indeed such a crown exists

I’d rather just close my mouth

say less

until words seem largely

irrelevant

bullies have a way of

closing down the best of us

 

silence

reigns

you almost

succeed in

quenching

the

fire

 

then from nothing comes something

fizzing in dark

starting over

a thought is bid

if you are a writer … even a terrible one

(borrow a word use one of yours thrown at me in scorn, which one? Inferior, awful, shallow, pretender, what else would you like to call?)

you can’t ever stop because someone hates you

you think you’re original in your loathing? All the world hates someone

therein LIES THE RUB

 

you have to write through fear

we would do nothing if every disapprobation stayed our desire to realize

when you run from every sleight of hand or slap you may as well stand back watching life diminish in your palm

a real strong soul will never be rewarded by universal confirmation

ugliness of former friends turning to enemy is more our modern trend

(they do it so well, those closeted thieves of light)

condemnation cusped about envy

gargoyles of indifference & spite

the sport some merrily make of others

they hunt with willing malice

(learning; you hurt, so I shall hurt you, to see which part flinched and quivers beneath my knife)

for no reason other than they are inquirers of vivisection

(when you know a person you know their weaknesses, it’s an easy back door to reach for sharpened blade)

 

so

please stay away

lose my number

do not read

pick another mark

shoot your arrows at

a mirror or reflection

that’s the guilty party

who turns full circle from victim to abuser

as paedophiles will claim

I didn’t mean to harm it was taught me

 

maybe

but choice we have

hurting those you can when smarting from pain

isolates you

in the ugliness of

becoming

just like them

 

(this is for https://boldbeatandnipless.com/ because this brave and courageous woman has been tormented by haters and it sickens me so much so I write this for her and out of my own experience of having had two haters in the last few years (fortunately they are a bad memory now) and the cry for this to stop being acceptable in our society alongside bullying and any shallow form of undermining truth and honesty)

 

Freedom from your scorn

call me anything you like or don’t call me at all

you’re cold when I’m hot and hot when I’m cold

many years past you asked that I leave

go away you said this isn’t your continent you do not belong here this is not your country

your jaw was too narrow to carry your eyes

I could see in between your bones and feel your lies

you sent me metaphorically packing

because of that I stayed

though you were right in a way, I did not belong

call me anything you like or don’t call me at all

you’re cold when I’m hot and hot when I’m cold

sometimes when someone threatens you

you say, okay then, bring it on

and you watch yourself fall down the rabbit hole

next time I’m challenged to a duel, I may hang up my sword

catch the next bus out-of-town

proving ourselves in battle, rarely avoids scars

call me anything you like or don’t call me at all

you’re cold when I’m hot and hot when I’m cold

what makes one person give another everything?

even when they know they will never receive an ounce in return?

do we loathe ourselves that much?

call me anything you like or don’t call me at all

you’re cold when I’m hot and hot when I’m cold

I’m done, breaking my heart over people

least of all you

you who broke me and didn’t even know you did

how absurd we are who give everything

to an empty hanger in an empty wardrobe in an empty chest within our empty arms

call me anything you like or don’t call me at all

you’re cold when I’m hot and hot when I’m cold

and I’m out of here with freedom from your scorn

 

The unhealed

If you opened me up

maybe with a zip or a crow bar

it is my belief inside I would be

eighty percent water from the sea

and twenty percent ghosts

who upon being freed

would walk away and let me be

so when I look longingly

at your scalpel or your blade

it is not because I wish to meet my maker

not yet anyway

but the irresistible urge to be freed

of these ghosts who pinch and knead

even if you fitted a zip dear sir

or inserted a pipe to let the smoke pour

anything would be preferable to this canker

an ulcer of lament forming malcontent

they weigh a lot for emotions past tense

no matter how hard I try they gain the upper hand

that’s what happens when your body is a grave yard

for souls who ripped you apart

you carry your history like a series of scars

nobody can see, they think you’re doing well

underneath your sequins it’s a bloody hell

sometimes I wish you could see how I feel

the cavernous maw of the unhealed

they don’t let go of my throat with their squeeze

when people jump I’m not surprised

who can live with such unease?

the ghosts inside us, reminding we’re never free

until we vanquish their poison

so give me some mercy

let them out

I would like to fly

but I have lost the ability to float

Pyres of intent

Too often hearing the words, moving despite them, closer to harm

for creatures who learn early, love comes with a burn

take it away, repair nothing, leave the year a ring in wooded recall

teach the child the brittle end, let her expect rejection as her pinnacle

you made a tragic art form, blown glass with foggy lies

years spent in devotion count for less than bags of garbage when tepid hearts decide

“we’re over you we’ve used the last drop

it’s time to move on

we won’t idle in the odor of regret

we don’t know how to feel it, miss it, hurt

we are the savagery of after thought

the futility of error seen when all is done

we are the person you poured everything into and found was made of holes

no more able to contain than pages of a story left to drown”

you are cold that leaches in through unseen cracks, til rooms are bare of comfort

sharp motions in night when strangled by insights fury come too late for action

rise of sorrow on a day leached of light, the deepest cut out of sight

you are the sting of salt on eternal wound

sky without the moon closed to bereavement

a generation of rebuke playing like tindered sticks in my head

the one violent regret impossible to mend

you stand vain and empty with everything and nothing

would that I could pull down the sky and wrap you in its void

retrace the steps that led us to pile choice upon choice in anguished folly

I’d swap us for each other, you’d stand in mud, sinking beneath your sorrow

now try to run, better we stay and feel the aftermath bathing our faces expressionless

like the snow from Hiroshima or dust of moths wiped on old bulb

flaking morsels of battle where only one had a sword

you will own your mistake as I shall reinvent my regret

the next time I’ll bring to the table a half struck match

and you, if you are combustible, we shall make pyres of intent

let you turn to cinders before you ever drove the blade in

redemption

history said

Go back

years ago

Go back

you are not wanted here

this is not where you belong

walking behind yourself

catching the depth of your tread

hang up your effort

string failure to dry

you leave your hope here

take one bag

get on a train

without a ticket

without windows

and in your musty closet

transform

to the dark bird you were

before you knew to fly

to the passenger who came with outstretched arms

seeking relief and quantity of blood to let

so all that nourished from you could

fling you away once done

the fille cruel said …

if I could plunge you head first

into the brink and keep you there

until you swallowed your dreams

amidst river water

I would have done so

but I am paying the price of karma

for destroying you I must suffer

though I claim to be a woman of God

pressing my palms together as tight as they go

all this that comes now to nail me shut

the consequence of my cruelty

you may lose your way

you may be set out without light

holding an empty bag told

again

go you are not welcome

but I shall die first and certain

without anyone to witness

for those who seek to harm

pay the longest price

for their one-way ticket

the survivor said …

when I learned to dance

at first my feet hurt

they did not fit narrow confine

bleeding through satin

staining effort

blistering I rose and challenged

the nails the stones

dancing over hurt and beyond

you cannot harm what you do

not understand

the broken will rise

taking their music sheets to far corners

letting go of caged songs

fed by the nourishment of your need

to damage and quench them

their feet shall defy the pain legacies in wood

long the sound of blood shall fall

after they have moved the world

turning in time to the beat of

desire inhabiting the stage

go on, further than possible

entering hallowed ground

where all who stumble climb back

toward the master who believes inviolate

his dreary manacle

made unsteady by their motion

they are

you are

no more than breath left behind

when the dance is done

and lights dimmed for tomorrow

we shall again begin

without you

such is our dream

woven throughout movement

in swaths of redemption

Throw

She entered the shop

the bell attached rang

her presence known

fingers combing glass boxes

containing riddles

why was she here?

to find answers she supposed

why those in glass houses

throw the hardest stones