A Pale Scrawl
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The affair

3/7/2018

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Picture
Should and shame share a bed
Patting the space between them
Inviting as an acid bath
Wishing to strip me
To bleached and brittle bone
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Orbit

3/7/2018

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Day slips from me
Through the trees
The moon chasing it
With me between
Another night comes
And you’re still not here


Each period of twenty four hours
Is a circle I trace
Winding up
At the same place I began
The steps I take
May bring rain, snow, sun, or wind
But never you


I wake in the morning
Wishing today were the day
Knowing it’s not
Wondering why
Hope leaving unseen
Like my body heat
From between the sheets




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One nation under gun

2/24/2018

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Their names
Will never drip from lips without sorrow
Flesh torn from bone
The smell of pennies pooling
Only the butcher learns in an abattoir
But the doors will reopen
I pledge allegiance
To the flag
Of the United States
Of ammunition
And to the Republicans
Whom we can no longer stand
One nation
Under the gun
utterly divided
With enmity
And injustice for all
Said with hand over Kevlar heart
As they learn about the boys
Taught to slaughter them
And the men who uphold the Right
Knowing they are a fresh entry in the bloody books
Of our history
Their assignment
Common Core
Undone because they’ve tasted the rotten apple
Seen every child left behind
And they’re writing on every board
“I will not let this happen again”




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Our bones the bars

2/12/2018

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I bought Legos for a child
With a hole in his heart
They were red, yellow, green, and blue
In varying sizes
So that he could interlock them
To his desire
Before gingerly aligning the nubs
And pressing gently
Into his chest
I’d whispered words
As I packed them
Wrapping them in brown paper
Tearing tape with my teeth
Writing his address
In thick black marker
I willed cold plastic
To warm flesh
To carry blood
To pump
Pump
Pump
His little life through him
For as long as he wished it
And not one day more
For our bodies
No matter their composition
Exhaust themselves
Before our minds
Our skin a prison
Our bones the bars


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The negotiable no

2/8/2018

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Jesus Christ.
Please, let’s continue to make light
of the negotiable no
It’s funny, right?
The attention I don’t want
The fear
The vigilance
Wanting to pull the blinds
and change the locks
Wishing I had eyes
in the back of my head
To see him coming
To will my thighs
To ask my knees
To beg my calves
To make my feet move faster
Pistoning away from him
Telling my friend
(Yes, my FRIEND, you jealous coward)
That if I’m in his bedroom at midnight
Shaking him awake
I need him to protect me
Because the crazy ex boyfriend
is not a joke
He’s a death sentence
Whether I live or not
So maybe
Instead of the chase
He’ll drink himself sick
Forget I ever existed
Move on to gnash his teeth
And tear his hair
Over someone else
I wish her the best


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A toast

1/17/2018

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Here’s to bad dates
To the wrong wine
To crying in cabs
Used up and tossed away
Again


Here’s to the men that make them
Entitled to their pleasure
Ignorant to yours
Schooled in how to get it
Regardless of cost


Here’s to pseudonyms
Protecting your life
Concealing your shame
A carpet over the trap door
You’re huddled beneath


Here’s to rape
And all the ways it happens


Here’s to admitting it
And the magnifying glass
I hope it burns
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unbuilt

1/14/2018

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There are devils in details
Softnesses lost
The gentle clunking of bone on bone
And realizing the stark reality
That we are breathing machines
As my layers have stripped away


My embraces are cold comfort
Given to few
Hoping they make no mention
Of how hard I’ve become


I miss relaxed ease
Sinking into rest
However I lay


Today I sleep with care
Stacking joints like Lincoln Logs
A perennial wish
To be someone
Somewhere
Made of something
Else






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Wealth

1/5/2018

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Will
Or won’t
I’ve doubts


No bets made
Or breath held
Bankruptcy and death don’t appeal


Wait and want
Or walk and need
It’s all the same to me




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The concept that I am good

11/26/2017

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I am learning to see myself through others’ eyes.
Fleeting moments where the veil of unrealistic expectation lifts, and I am stripped soul bare of my glaring flaws. Confrontation by kindness, by no gnawing want or need of what use I can be, their words are based in truth. There are no “buts,” or “if you justs,” and I am humbled in an impossible way. I learned to be self effacing because what I knew was either cruelty or ambivalence, absorbing the worst of the words said to me about me. I was arrogant, fat, argumentative, petulant, selfish, crazy, stupid, or there was just silence on the line. I was never the Goldilocks option even when I was the only option. “Enough” always hanging in the air out of my reach. And it’s sad to think I simply accepted what was handed to me without question because it was joined with “love.”


I’ve cleared a lot of clutter in the last couple of years. The din quieting because I’ve silenced it. Excising the sources and healing the open wounds they left. I’ve stopped lying for other people because I’m no longer able to cushion egos like glass ornaments. Someone else’s insecurity isn’t mine to carry. I have enough of my own, and I need proof to justify an endorsement or its lack. And this is where the clarity comes. There is no emptiness in the spaces the negatives filled. This is likely due to the cold fact that they never should have been there to start, but I hung on because I thought that they were right and I was all wrong.


The things that people say to me now are hard to hear, a code I can barely crack. They’re things I say to other people without hesitation, but returned it’s inscrutable. I struggle with the idea that people enjoy my company. I don’t understand compliments about my appearance, my demeanor, my abilities, or my intelligence. The concept that I am good isn’t easily taken on its face because I’m not. I’m simply trying not to be awful out of the need to make my own daily existence just a little less harsh. There is enough chaos in the world. I don’t need to suffer. My capacity for kindness is in itself an accomplishment and I’m prouder of it than anything else I’ve ever done.


Did you know that you are loved despite your not loving yourself?


Did you know that you are perfect because of your flaws?


Did you know that you deserve the same kindness you give to others?


Did you know that there is no reward in martyrdom and self deprivation?


Did you know the only one who hates you is you? Have you asked why? Are you being honest?

​Did you know that someone sees you as a gift every day?





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Self reliance at six

11/21/2017

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I can’t tell you
That sleep rarely finds me
Thoughts coiling tight as springs
Releasing just as I begin to nod
Jolting me back
To the reality of my inescapable body
Sweat pooling on my skin
Rooting me to the same place
No matter where it is I lie


I get up and walk around
Returning to sodden sheets
A damp pillow
I choose the dry side


•••••••••


Too many nights
I woke to her
The thudding from upstairs
The wedge of light beneath the door
She wasn’t alone


She was never alone
She was three bottles of wine
And a night at The Lamppost
And a string of hims
Whose faces I never learned
She misnamed my disdain jealousy
Too broken and sick
To see


••••••••


She wore her age badly
Or maybe it was wearing her
A pinch at her lips
A sink to her eyes
Before she was forty
But claiming my youth misspent


I stashed coins like years
In a box beneath my bed
The metal unable to be stolen from me
Hoping someday I could transmute them
Regain the time taken
By self reliance at six


••••••••


I think about how I’m like her
The mirror giving nothing away
I am Athena hatched from my father’s head
A goddess of too much wisdom
And war
But she is in my voice
Unaccented and tumbling from my mouth


I only remember seven words
Though I’ve forgotten their sound
I still feel the sharp cold edge of them
Against my neck


••••••••


I look younger now
Than she did
I’m spending what I saved slowly
Or perhaps I’ve learned to grift
Short changing the clerk
As the calendar pages flip
Exchanging a single five for a ten
With a smile






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