A Pale Scrawl
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Boulders of suspicion

5/24/2017

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Picture
Spoonfed weakness grain by grain
Accumulating in my belly
As stones in a bird's craw
Weighing me down
And I can't fly
Or flee


Fingers stuck down my throat
Trying to vomit them up
Knowing they won't come
And the idea
Of slitting myself open
To reach in and pull them out
Is too much to bear


I know it's been done to us all
Told it was others just like us who did it
I maintain that they didn't know
They were seeding boulders of suspicion
Instead of pearls of grace
From the same spoons
For which they'd opened their own mouths wide
As baby girls
As young women
As mothers


Suffused with the poison
Of contempt and competition
Content to waste
To wish
We looked like we did a year ago
Before we had children
Before we had lives of our own
Before puberty gave us bodies
With lines that aren't straight
Always beautiful in a time that isn't now
Because to admit your beauty is here
In this moment
Is a strength
And to be strong will render us
Unwantable
Unneedable
Undesirable
Unlovable
Unworthy
Alone in a world that's already cruel enough
For girls


But that boy over there
He says he's strong
Smart
Handsome
Rewarded with attaboy and pats on the back
By everyone he meets


Why are we different?
Why is he applauded and I am scorned?
Our squirming origin the same


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Without looking back

5/22/2017

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Picture
I'm leaving by accident
Just as I arrived
Borne aloft by the hope of love
Blown west like a dandelion's clock
Waiting for your voice
Saying "go!" on the wind


But this time
It's not the going that's happenstance
It's the reason
The knowledge of home
In a place I've never seen
A permanence determined
And I'm not afraid of forever
Like I always have been


To quell my impatient fidget
I prepare
Writing lists
Making plans
Learning new languages
Revisiting old ones
And I know we won't use them
Much or at all
But it stills the clamor
Quiets my "when?"
Redirecting the instinct to bolt
Without looking back












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A goal without definition

5/16/2017

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Picture
And there is a weight in my chest
Too heavy to lift
Compressing my lungs
So I'm sipping careful breaths
Of air so thin it stings


This is what it is to miss you
Living half a life
Just enough to sustain me
Not enough to fulfill


I want the small things
Keys dropped next to each other on the table
A shared ice cream spoon in the sink
Streaky with residue no amount of licking can remove
My ribs expanding to their fullest
And you next to me


This feeling is new
A tie that binds without binding
The weight of waiting
A goal without definition


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What won't mend

5/12/2017

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Picture
It's the twinge of healed bone in a cold snap
A distant echo of pain you've long since forgotten
And you're suddenly, inexplicably angry
At your traitorous self
For the reminder
That you haven't (maybe can't ever)
Set it entirely right
So you apologize to everyone
Except yourself
For your failings
Which nobody else sees
Until you shine light on them
As penance for your lack of resilience
This is what I've broken
This is what won't mend
This is what pulses and bleeds
What makes me stumble
And why I won't take a hand
Offered to help me up
Because I deserve this
Look at all I've done and shouldn't
All I haven't but could have
Maybe someday
I will no longer flinch
Untold winters since
Under my belt
But not today
So please don't leave
Have the patience I don't
To love me just as I am


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