Sleep-walk
through a black body bag
toe’s tagged
he falls dirty like a dish rag
My love, his chalk
outline becomes my bed
he sleeps deep inside my lungs
I try to cough up his death
We exhale sharply together,
our silly little game
one of us a winner
the other in the grave
I am stuck with this raw, young body here
but he has taken my blood
my pulse is stiff against a man
yet I howl for the touch
For the moon’s milk
to puncture my skin
pray for my spirit
bring me to life again
Stone clouds tell her story.
Today was dry before grey stomped
over head.
I wish I was her. She reminds me
how to cry like my pupils are perfect moons,
ten thousand drops on the prick
of every sharp edge .
She shapes me,
she wraps me in her moisture
when I am filth, then leaves.
I forget. I fly around memory
and time like
it still exists,
like one floor leads to
the next floor,
like today isn’t meant to say anything,
I hope
for silence underwater,
my big head under
water
breathing out every last danger
until my old body is
roaring grey stone,
floating in over head,
reminding someone to fly around
memories
and time
like they still exist.
A woman wrinkles over her chair,
soaked in religion,
piling God’s children on gravel.
They eat with her disciples
where bread is dry, yet
milk is sweet.
I stand by with clover.
I paint the children green and set them up
as chess pieces.
Confused feet step over boundaries,
but it is her game.
Her weight stomps chicken bones.
Her voice pours like gravy
over our heads, till I put them to sleep,
and the lullaby’s rock me
as I bleach time from my head.
The woman is asleep
in God’s arms, I rest at his feet,
and the children,
in their sleep, sing.
I’m hungry.
My stomache tugs at
an old fetus, belly up,
a stutter in a hot month.
I think, I would paint her
like a spring egg,
or sculpt her like a chess game
where she could be queen
and cut off the eyelids of liars,
like I.
I would give her my hands to do with
all the weapons
and my tongue to speak with
all the words
she would know that she is not a pink
fluff laying on a pillow,
she is a sharp dagger,
a soft poison,
a prowess taking life by God’s
mighty light,
she would know
if she was not an old thought,
if she was not a small white stutter
stabbed out of the clutches
of my womb
she would know.
My sister speaks oily.
Brown.
Cooked.
I fried her up near the New Year.
A harsh time of the year,
for me.
Snow chills the others,
but, me,
I am the snow.
Piling up in their driveways.
Icing porch steps.
Breaking China ties,
porcelain
life.
The mailbox glares at me
every time
I visit. Empty handed.
I write every day. Letters to myself.
Memories.
Fear.
Hurt.
Shame.
Never has my hand thought to
write
to Idaho.
To a fried potato.
In my dreams
she comes, frostbitten;
blue asphyxiation.
Her lips like dried leaves,
brown,
crisp.
Her eyes streaked with trauma
and
under siege.
She commands me, summoning
my tremors with
her poisoned whistle.
I try to inhale,
but my lungs are missing!
I drop.
To my knees, in panic! They
have escaped!
I cannot find oxygen to grant voice
to tongue. She wrings me out!
Her eyes clamped tight
to my throat, twisting
her frozen corpse
to my
bone.
She has spread; I am cold,
White winter.
Alone.
The snow concealed the ground around me
as I reached inside and
clutched for the new
soul
flourishing.
My clutch turned into
a grip of uneasiness as the
new soul did not
reach his hand back for mine.
In a trepidation, I froze…my hand came
back to me covered
in blood….red body
fluid trickled down my leg, speckling
the snow – warming the frozen
blanket and
revealing the solid ground below.
Blood so bright in the snow, soaked brown
in the dirt. Blending the colors, ignorant to the
trace of the
part of life it just consumed.
I screamed at the ground!
How dare it soak up
the little
flourishing soul
as if it was nothing! A piece of
my very own soul!!
Not a word of gratitude or comfort from the
dirt for the forfeiture of
my nurturing body!
The ghosts are becoming countless.
I could name them, but that wouldn’t do any good. I try
to hide from them, but they always find me; under piles of blankets
on my bed when I’m turning in for the night, through the music
playing on the radio when I drive
my car around town,
in the eyes of an ex-lover who looks at me as if he
wants to rip my teeth out with
pliers.
The ghosts sit with me in every silent moment. They whisper
to me and giggle. They know that the escape
isn’t working out as planned. One of them gouges at my eyes. It wants blindness
to suck me deep inside myself so that I have
no way to try to hide.
When I sit, to write these sick stories, I am so engrossed with
fear that the words refuse to fall from the ink of the pen. They climb through, to the
top of the pen and right back into my hand. Dirty, filthy little words climb up my arms and through
each little nook in my soul and back to the dark, screaming corners of my
mind.
Each letter stopping by my conscience to scream obscenities before settling in comfortably.
I am skin,
bones, and
two toned cheeks.
I reek of issues, baggage and
distance.
Walk a mile –
can’t find me. No mile
could. “While
you are looking, could you
grab me a latte? Double shots?
Thanks!”
I found
a story, a long time ago. It carried on and on and on. Redundant. It nearly drove me insane! Then, one day, the story changed! I think I was in shock. So, I walked miles and miles away.
The story couldn’t find me and I didn’t want it to. I have no use for stories; real or imagined!!
A boy came along and he
started writing, sketching words and illustrations in a binder.
He had longing in his eyes as he
sat under a hot, burning lamp. But, the
poor fool kept on writing.
He told me what he imagined
and hoped he could create.
Well…I listened and I smiled and
approved of his story. But he had the damn characters all wrong!!
I told him of my loathe for stories and how I may
regurgetate my lunch if he tried to write me in it.
He sulked, momentarily, but he went on his way. I suppose he writes in a new character
to take my place.
All the better for me.
I am skin,
bones, and it might be because of all the stories
that make me regurgetate my lunch.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 