Poetry Is Not Just Words Nor Rhythm or Rhyme Poetry Is Not Just A Moment In Time It Is Not Ink Upon

Manifestation

When I was little, I would always draw the same kind of characters My mother once remarked how odd it was that, in the end, I grew up to look exactly like one of them A tall girl with long tangled hair And legs reaching down almost to the bottom of the page I wonder if that’s what people call manifestation Did I stretch my own bones with the stroke of an overzealous pen? Did I really have such power placed in my innocent hands?

If so, what am I to think of the darkness I dreamt since childhood? Of how lovely and comforting  the obscure was to me The inferred but unuttered The women that I would draw always looked to the side Beyond the borders of my colouring book With an odd knowing glimmer in their eyes A somber, secretive look Over the years my bones shifted to give me that same face An unreadable cypher I grew to be sullen, to silence more than I say Did I have a hand in it? Did I define my own features, Craft them in one fell swoop of a felt tip?

What made me who I am? Destiny or design? I never intended to play God But it seems I held my own self in my palms Like a block of clay Some kind of unconscious arts and crafts project. I must have modelled myself after all that I admired Rebellious and bohemian Enamoured to madness Distanced and calculating Less bridal than monstrous

I blackened my own heart with a permanent marker I told myself a story enough times That it stepped from the page to meet its maker It’s not that I wasn’t warned I am tall and brooding because I never listened to what I was told Careful what you wish for It might just come true The human psyche, a distorting mirror, a game of mimicry Monkey see, monkey do

I was a child with second sight Sketching her own future So I guess it is manifestation The mighty spell of magic thinking Almost as potent as a third eye Mother was right. I am fiction become flesh My life, a successful imitation of art

Inspired by @jmsapphire‘s prompt “Mold my clay heart” for @poetryclub13

And after, I couldn’t bear the ocean for thelongest time. Until today, when for the first time I wanted to touch the sand again. And after I got back home I realised that you would never be able to forget me; that like that sand you can never completely free yourself of me. You think you’ve washed me all away and then you find me in between your toes or in your ears, laughing and making you miss me. Reminding you of how good it felt to be covered in me and how nothing can even remotely compare.

Excerpt from a book I will never write #1376

Lifeline (a poem)

Lifeline

My dog doesn’t realize how his leash is a lifeline a grip on his reality keeping him from the cold regardless impact of cars or the enticing aroma of freedom that would lead him so far from home he might never make it back no matter how strong the pull of his hunger or the ache for his toys and bed or even the sound of his name being called out over and over through all the empty streets within my ever-broken heart.

Words flow from the deepest gashes of our deepest injuries. If you treat the wound and let it scab over, The words won’t come anymore.

stay miserable because I like the way you bleed. (via housewiththereddoor)

Good stuff.

Meant To Be Bad

An Angel

Everyone has one

They watch upon us, they say

Aiding us through strangest of means

But when your angels turn to beasts

And haunt your dreams

Darkness spreads everywhere, no way out

You must become comfortable in this hell

For now fury is your peace

Your demons, they can’t be drowned

And you start to sink in the black water

They are your salvation

What is there in morality?

Submit

You are meant to be bad

You shall so enjoy, you feel

Revenge from fate

Although this path is forlorn and condemned

And a transient relief

Who is to say I won’t succeed?

It was evening then. Just 7:30, but the night had already set. The dim streetlight cast a bluish hue over me. I was walking in the street, towards the pool side of the B block. I was wearing a hoodie,the hood covering my head. My gait and the hoodie signalled ignorance but I knew it was just a pretense. I knew it hid me from the gazes of other, it hid me from their faces, which told me what they were thinking, it hid me from thinking too much. Cold winter wind was blowing. I was wearing shorts and could feel it flowing around my bare shins. It flew through me. The coldness went through me like a ghoul. It sucked energy from me. Goosebumps signalling its departure. Leaving me momentarily empty. But I felt alive. The heat in me receded. The anger subsided. The cold wind felt fresh in my lungs. It chilled my nose. It felt tingly. The wind was addictive. I wanted more cold, more release. I wanted to feel it in my body. I wanted to drown in it. It gave me relief but took my life. While I write this my nose bleeds. I feel the red warm blood flowing out, dropping to the ground. Turning from deep red to ferric tangerine. The wind was parasitic.

They Change Us

From man To monsters

Frome monster To men

Such Mercurial Is Our Nature