I’m sorry I didn’t tell you
about the real me
she’s not happy with her subtefuge
it cost her heavily
the weight of deception has always
sat like curdled cream in a bowl
waiting to be thrown away
or consumed and in so doing
poison truth from her hiding place
she’d be forthright if
it didn’t cost more
than she had in her purse
purchased inexpensively
in a local artisan’s market
that closed years ago
when creativity waned
and people hoped their kids
would go to Business School.
When you die
people will talk you up
fatten your totem pole into fierce faces
of defiance
because you were strong, because your blood carried
the weight of your legacy and your ancestors
when you die
I will wear your ring on my finger if I am still around
and every sunset will pull the moon down
her mauve redolence
aching in my chest
to hold you against me
for when you die
memory will become a marriage
between us, and the ether
I will live in the past ever more so
recalling the days we spent
living our life in each other’s gastropods
it is my belief we carry within us
the seeds of ancestors and loved ones
blood and violets, oshibana in focus
and each step we make on this earth
we walk alongside the invisible ones
who hold us up when the going gets tough
recently, the going has been very tough and I have
beseeched the stoicism of those who are not here
to see me through
I don’t have their solidity, you know
nor their earnest lust for life
at times I think a brawny wind could
carry me off
I have at best, one foot on the ground
the other is hurtling in a rêver
a dream of less grief, less pain
where we can unfurrow our sails
and drift on burnished water
I was asked not long ago
what I most wanted out of life
and it seemed such a banal question
when struggling to survive
but really that’s the point isn’t it?
To keep putting one foot in front of the other
staring at the setting sun as it blooms
fattened orb of life
just as capable of destroying
a metaphor surely …
for our riddled
minds
(homage to Nomadland)
What does one do in order to feel?
Not the safe kind, sanitized by Clorox wipe
left to garner in sun until just right temperature
palatable and convivial like a well heeled aunt.
No, I mean the bloody kind
coming at night, knocking your flippin socks off
just as you got used to living in a box, neat beige walls
knowing how you felt because you didn’t let it out
to crawl around and get dirty, muddy, sodden, feral
where feelings elongate into shadows and back again
tripping us up, as we shuffle to the bathroom for midnight piss.
Those feelings, the ones hammering your heart shut
as you open windows in the morning, anguish
and agonies unnamed, pour out into sore tongued dawn
you can’t even speak it, you can’t get the lump to dislodge
from your tightening throat, it’s like a scream has purchased
hooks and they’re pulling them out, fileting your senses.
The sheer ravage of it
makes you want to turn and run like a red gash
except … it’s everywhere, in your pores, your veins, the very
sentence structure of survival
how you make eye contact, which hand you use
to wipe yourself
feelings lie in the hems of your dress, the arch of your shoes
they crawl up your inner thighs and birth your secrets
with wild fingers and loose tongues
spilling afterbirth like unwanted punctuation.
For all your running in place, you’re growing tired
the careful structure of denial, unknitting itself
in a parody of lovemaking you come undone
till one day sitting at a coffee shop
someone asks you if you have the time
and it reminds you
suddenly, a cut the length of a sword
nobody asks the time anymore
and you begin to scream
rooms emptying
people looking backward
at the woman who
unfolds her horror
like a thin Japanese fan
to keep herself
from combusting.
Pause
take note
before wishing adieu
consider those rushing years
how they go
girls in wide skirts with brown elbows
flaring in pluming circles, colors of earth and sky
feet tripping over movement, making hexagons of their desire
look back … oh look back
those long years that lay like the junk drawer in your house
untouched by thought or query
ransack shelves you have long forgotten
a hair band from her, 2006 I think, the texture of caught wisps changed so much.
Every room carries the souls of every person who inhabited them
a ring made of silver paper, from the inside of a cigarette box as we sat
in a dark bar on the edge of town, knocking back whiskey and birch
playing footsie beneath sticky tables, with shoes off, bare toes searching
photos of people lost, people found, people who no longer exist lost in circles
the force of life remains inexplicable.
Times past, fast and hot like racing cars revving their engines as soon as dusk
settles like a woman’s gloves on the sorrowful face of the world
for years you rushed around, paying no heed to silent pieces of life you accumulated
halogen lamps stand like cupie dolls with radiant faces
stuffing them in boxes, tying with ribbons, preserving for what day?
There’s lavender from my grandmothers farm, her old best silver spoon, a dog
tag from my father’s first, the smell of grass and good doggie sweat still adheres
an old stone mill and my cousins would drink from tadpole ridden water
and I am the one who grew up to outlast, everyone.
All the people in this photo are gone, still they remain on unsettled periphery
what would they tell me? Get rid of her, she chokes you like
late wine that has corked, she takes and gives nothing back but ingratitude
it’s never enough, it will never be enough, you are not seeing clearly
and the memories of velvet as soft as snow haunt like miniature heart
attacks caught in disused webs.
in jars there are stars and in skies there are words, for everything existing here
is upside down
I write about you until my fingers bruise, I remember the little things
you long cast aside as of no use, like me, like us, like this, once and lost
your memory is a cruel sieve with no regard for history or effort
only the smelt of immediacy and present day full exposure
I have long been your past, just as we have
become junk in drawers, lost to further inspection
when words run dry and even letters stay unopened
your cough sweets, when you ran a high fever and I made soup
the times I took, the hours, the moments,
caught in nets in your mind, to be drowned even deeper
crabbing pots without capture, no dinner tonight you sustain
yourself on bitterness and temerity.
When i am gone, tied in forgetfulnesses bow, you will not recollect
the cards I hand made, how I stitched your favorite sweater
three times till the moths had their eventual dinner
when you were lonely, the words we spoke in the dark
those comforts that are lost in the past, never to be unearthed
I built a life time and you forgot the shopping list
and driving into the sun, lost your desire for remembering.
Here in this place, I keep the momentos of lost walks
the day you whispered to me, I was the one, how we
climbed and fell together, like gradual waterfall
here is the photo of us laughing
here is a snapshot of us ending
still there are always rubber bands and pins at the bottom of a drawer
to snap and prick you back, to caring about something other than yourself
where we lay beneath cherry blossom, because you said you always wanted
to eat sandwiches and drink wine beneath Spring trees
my hair growing below my waist, the pizza they gave us
when one was not enough, drinking coffee on tindered street
wishing we could still smoke, being well behaved, havoc resting
the copper light of that room, how it smelt of patchouli and wine
even as we left.
I still fit into those days
they fit me like old clothes made new with sentiment’s stitch
climbing from the silence of today into
a divining bell and sinking beneath perpetual hurt
till music swells and covers my consciousness with
buttered fingers
they slip into me as you dove
deep and never released
your breath, my swimmer, my underwater love.
I still see you there
telling me to trust, when I am walking on our ash
here the trees are taller than those we grew to
know and there are no cactus or flowers of the desert
to go with that favorite tune.
I climb California hills with Barney and he hands me
a piece of advice, a white flag
don’t look back, do what it takes
life is an arrow, cast it wide, cast it careful.
Pink is a damn sunrise slung over beautiful shoulders
running rest of the way home, past the old mental hospital
where secrets are wrapped in files never read, like mosquito nets in Alaska
I go back to my Canadian house and the closed feel of doors
watch snow fall and think of tattoos
over 30 and how time is like unconsciousness
you feel it in another part of you
searching for a way to unite the two.
Slow jazz playing on a malnutritioned needle
here the fair comes promptly in June
they all rush outdoors, so grateful for sun
I tell them, where I came from it never relented.
And I wonder, are you still there? Waiting for me
on the one day of rain? As we kissed goodbye
beneath lampposts, driving separately off, blind in downpour
each aware of time ticking further apart
long arms flung like an acrobat in green ocean
flips ever more easily, than we on land
shall inherit perhaps these fitful musings
of things left behind
unsaid
undone
withdrawn.
The fence between us
you hammered in
you uncoiled and made
tall and hard to
climb.
A few people said / write something succinct / shorter than your usual / elaborated rhetoric / don’t you know how to / edit and be precise in your / measurement of words / good writers don’t need / verbal diarrhea / they can mold meaning / certain as bending copper / to light.
She thought it over
Knowing it was possible
After all she’d written some very
Shaved and glutted poems
Once.
(It wasn’t her way and if you are not true to your way
then you may as well be another lemming / willing to leap / from cliffs edge
of course this precludes learning which is / a value immeasurable
sometimes you can learn everything and still / go back to drawing unrealistically).
Finding something – – – perhaps it’s not a poem or a form but a short story
In the elongation and manipulation of reality and precision. Imprecise then. Deliberately.
Long ago she had no words because she couldn’t spell well enough to write. So she drew. For hours. Reels of paper. Stories by picture. Things she needed to say. To no one listening.
When she saw Woman In A Red Armchair hanging in a burgundy room / the silence palpable aside / rain hammering outside / mercilessly / like a hundred mouths clamoring
she tried not to stare at the line that made the woman / female
but was drawn to it as she might have been / a real breathing woman
something exquisite and desirable / she longed to see a live flesh and blood girl
to touch her with her empty hands and run them over her / quivering flesh
until those colors swelled up / and she cried out / for the sheer torment and beauty
but
no girls existed / save those who / liked boys / there were plenty of them
why were they all heterosexual?
why wasn’t she?
In America she heard / there are entire schools / devoted or a byproduct perhaps / lesbians / and only-girls-schools / well don’t start on them …
living in the city / you’d think but you’d be wrong / a few pinches / mostly shorn / forlorn
empty eyed / emulating men / less female than / those who wanted to lie beneath them.
Where existed that / judge not / beauty / with /dark eyes
the missing / beat / savor / prosper / sail
to her / soul.
If she could have / found her all along / not searching years but moments / glimpsed
sight and immediately / both knew / this bond before / words spoken
even at 13
even before she were born
perhaps you dreamed of me
created in the stillness of your loneliness / that which you did not have / filling emptiness with yearning / I am born to be / the wet ink on your skin / a permanence / no longer waiting / arms outstretched / for dreams unnecessary / now we / are.
Never quite together / torn asunder / this year the blackcurrents come later / as if they knew / what wonders and nightmares / store / waiting behind the pitch / to come rushing / we tried / we failed / the frailty of emotion / it bleeds easily / like thin skin / gone a-blackberrying / on a listless day / no clouds nor movement / sky dim / with unspent rain / the longing stored up / causing pain.
Perhaps you dreamed of me.
I stood — uncertain — proud backed —
against the light
where shape can be outlined
most acutely
if then you’d looked — ephemeral — something unstated
in muted expression
what we do not say — what we hold inside — contains the greatest
message.
Return to me. Though you are gone. Through the shroud. Time be gentle. Time be cruel.
Different and the same. Recollecting nothing. There is the proof. Stained on our table. Where you cut yourself. On a sharp knife of desire. And I opened to you. Ballet within music. Rapture closed us together. Forgotten. How do you not remember.
That long night we ran barefoot?
Flowers close their drowsy heads. Against night. Sleep. An eternity. Wakening. We are
strangers. Again.
Loss. A pressed red petal against Italian paper. Seeking its watering. I am so thirsty for your return. My love.
Truth hinted at
there’s a ghost in the machine
that’s me
she’s climbing out of her past, survived the worst
they hold up mirrors and shout
let it out, let it out
the she who is me
spread eagle, violate
who will she need to please to be free?
I watch her as I would a
lover who coming close is further apart
the darkness of hurt
a chocolate center to emptiness
her breasts are hard and warm like
lost thoughts in my hair
we weave a strangeness over one another
her fingers inside me and then
words perfumed in the air
promises were said and broken
the bed lays untouched and I would wish I’d been
so lucky
bruises act like kisses and kisses are too deep
your tongue goads my sleep
when I said no you took and ate
your fill, then with moonlight cutting
curtains blind in silver
I see the outline of sin and pleasure
how pain is curled in little leisure
the first strike, sharp lines, leather belt
hands around my neck and down my throat
marks left on marks, growing roses in darkness
you make a hand print of the child lost
blood in water, sheets and cries
who will clean the absolution and who will
witness the last time?
I gave you what I could, it wasn’t
full it wasn’t even good
that was all there was
empty roads, night time rain, ebony on asphalt
lay me down on thorns
paint me a picture of torment
here’s my proffer, my scorn
for not being able to keep a secret
pluck a pin, suck it in, there it sprouts
savage love, ruins the innocent
pain comes in snatches like dreaming
you relish the way I collapse after you’ve taken
this last suspense, rinse out, leave her ready
for the next punch, a wound so loud
her breath has vocals
I’ve been gone a long time now
only the sound of the past plays
on repeat
gentle and low
as violence ebbs her sharp tongue
licking the wounded with happy sorrow
When I stopped dancing full-time and entered delayed puberty
my breasts swelled like a lily in a pond
at first it was kinda cool getting attention from boys
then I hated how they jutted out and called ahead
like car headlights
slowly tracking, flashing, blinding
in those days of Flashdance and Fame
the three L’s; leggings, leg warmers, leotards
loving in the afternoon, running to studio
dancing with the smell of sex on my stomach
other girls ate salad and cardboard
threw up in the bathrooms
bound their breasts with cloth
I admired their long necks and sinewy thighs
the tightness of their waists and flat chests
my own puberty felt like something out of control
foreign and unwanted to me
I wanted the lean girl of childhood back
the one who climbed trees with one hand
hung upside down
eating apples
there was too much
attached to owning breasts and thighs
even his circle of me dimmed
looking at some of my friends
the ones with slimmer hips and shoulders
still in their girl-doll-bodies
I with my woman seeping out
became a thing of disgust, or so I thought
when I carried his child, my breasts grew even more
wetting the front of my nightshirt with wasteful milk
his eyes took in the sum of me and disgusted
he looked away
always preferring me hairless and skinny
like a girl not a woman
no make-up, wearing little thin things
someone he could control
so I had a sickness in myself
of warped images, desire and lost babies
starving myself beyond the pale
it wasn’t hard, I had little to lose
soon I ran for buses on the breath of feathers
circling my waist he’d say
you remind me of Audrey Hepburn
being tiny, I decided it had been a dream
no child, no loss, no lack of desire
he sexed me every night until sate
leaving bruises on my legs and arms like
vampire bites
but always turning his head away
like he was thinking of someone else
when he left me for that girl
who was dark-skinned and voluptuous and healthy
I realized being a little girl didn’t keep me safe at all
after that I never gave myself away
to people with eyes that looked straight through me
or hands that grabbed to own
a piece of me or what I possessed
though I had no idea what
that was
lying by myself in a small room
smoking hashish in the dark listening to
Tunnel of Love on repeat
I tried to turn my heart to glass
only my body wanted to be awoken from her slumber
a virginal boy, with no grace and long hair
filled my nights and my bed for a time
I taught him how
to roll the perfect joint
and study, where time ended and pleasure began
once he asked
why do you bind your breasts every morning?
they are beautiful
I turned from him
my skin burning with secrets
and did not ever reply
for who can disclose the litany of pain?
as it lies
like a sleeping child
behind your eyes?
If you saw everything in retrospect
What language would you hear?
Climbing through cumulus clouds
The color of death valley
Sand strewn prayers
Over scraped knees and heavy cello bow
You slapped me backhanded
I watched myself
Fall like water
Wet against the sound
It excited you to see
Blood on my lips
The outline of violence
Lacing time and roses with secrets
You look out at a stark dull day
Feel glad you have the assurance of what stands rigid behind closed doors
We wear bright smiles at parties
The golden couple, they admire our rehearsal
Like pedigree animals who mask their bad nature
I’d bite your hand
And he’d fill your throat with glass
The lowered sun casting a haze over
Our magnification
Teaching darkness to obscure the simmering
Hand pinching my thighs open, striking
Quiet match of fire beneath
I hold onto your dismissal
Like butterflies
Slipping and fleeting
Driftwood
Skipped stones as smooth as
Your tongue in my mouth
What language do you speak?
As you lean in to remove all hope
And pinching between wet fingers
Extinguish light til only the circumference
Of stars
Lend their distant
Glow
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! Previously published work you hold the copyright permissions on, are acceptable.
Please add your voice.
The story: 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.
What can’t be said aloud
or even blown into an envelope
placed in a bottle and set to sea
or kept beneath your pillow in diary
those words and feelings without words cannot
find a place of expression
for a multitude of reasons or just one
you carry them around like a weight
dripping from your neck
sometimes in a weak moment
you feel yourself urging to spill
the bunting and string it high
confidences for everyone to see
what’s the worst that could happen?
and yet, you know, the worst
is bad enough to keep
you quiet
how many others, you wonder
carry their own list of unmentionables
and what would they be?
any in common or always unique?
if you let someone know
the sum of you
would they
grow bored?
become disgusted?
smile and say ‘i understand’
when they did not?
who can understand the deep of us?
where we dare not venture, let alone another
what permissions given and retracted
exist?
like the long necked lillies that spring
miraculously from dry texan ground
after it has rained and
the electric mist has caused wonder
to touch the barren
perhaps it is a sign when
you can talk of such things
late into the night
with a stranger you will never
meet again
or that you whisper to yourself
the varied outcomes of confession
strung on a tree, lighting dark road
no, sometimes it is best
we model our forefathers and mothers
who knew what to keep to themselves
for years they held them in jars
turning to the light once in a while
and when they died, sometimes you would find
one survived the cull
and everyone would hush and hold their breaths
in inky silence
not sure of how to respond
somehow a secret after you are gone
doesn’t hold the same concern
and maybe they were free of them
in that hour
when all who knew, discovered
they had not
known them at all
TheFeatheredSleep 