Author: poetryfest

you were a wildflower thought
blooming in the corner of my mind

not loud
not certain
but enough to make me wonder
what it might feel like
to be chosen by someone like
you

you carried the storm in your silences
and i mistook it for stillness
your heart a locked room i was never
granted the key to
but oh, how i lingered outside
waiting for the light beneath the door
to shift

you were a fragment of a dream
i dared to touch with waking hands.

and it slipped
as all illusions do
not cruelly
but as if it had never intended
to stay

i do not curse you
nor do i beg you to turn around
some souls are comets
bright
breathtaking,
and never meant to orbit

but i am not empty in you absence
i am the sky that remains
i am
the soil
where softer things grow

and though you will not return
i will not close

i am still becoming
the kind of love that stays

goodbye, sweet maybe
thank you for the ache
thank you for reminding me
how deeply i can feel
and how softly i can let go

goodbye, sweet maybe
goodbye, soft glance
goodbye to the dance

we didn’t get to dance

I come to the woodlands for the air
For the hills and heavens and for the green
For the grace and the beauty
And to be with you
I chose these woodlands for you

I come to celebrate and to mourn
To thank and remember
To raise a glass to a life lived well
Whatever comes now
No matter the silence and solitude
I’m grateful
And quietly a better soul
Having walked by your side

i don’t like to eat
it’s nothing against food, i just don’t like to consume it
i want to be a model
you can’t be fat when you’re a model;
you have to be skinny
and you can’t be skinny if you eat all the time

i am lenient with myself though
i allow myself two full meals a day
i eat normally when i’m with someone else, but if nobody is watching,
i don’t have to
i give myself snacks though
fruits, protein bars, the usual
i do allow myself a packet of ramen in the occasion
i keep it tucked away so it’s hard for me to reach

my parents don’t know about my condition
it’s nobody else’s business but mine

i do workout quite a bit as well
if one has chosen the profession i have, you can’t just be skinny
you have to be toned as well
i work on my abs a lot,
they receive the brunt of the attention
my arms are flimsy; i don’t need watermelon muscles
i work on my legs as well
running, walking, jumping, dancing
anything really
my backside is alright too, but my breasts receive more attention

i don’t have to work on those
they’re big on their own
i can’t fix anything about them, without surgery, that is
i don’t mind them though
they’re not what gets in the way

i like the way i am
when i look at myself in the mirror, after i haven’t eaten in a while, i like what i see
i don’t think people would understand though nowadays, body positivity is crucial
but i like when i look thin
but people don’t like that
people think i am living up to an unhealthy standard, but it’s only my own

sometimes it’s hard to stay on schedule
food is tempting
but i remind myself that when i do eat,
i feel uncomfortable, not welcome in my own body
i don’t think they’re negative thoughts,
just gentle reminders

it’s okay that people don’t understand they don’t need to
only me
it’s my body

And as I lifted the shingle from the roof, the ants were exposed
(It’s hard to think of their being there before I revealed them).
they became a compact scurrying horde
scurrying around a pile of white larvae
And I didn’t smash them.

Very quickly they made a system —
each little black strongman would hoist a larva over his head
And carry it away.
The first ant blazed a trail across the roof
And he was followed closely.
And so they formed a neat one-by-one path
Like ants do.

I don’t know where they were going to take their babies.
Surely the ants did.

anyway I tried not to kill anyone.
They knew they couldn’t stay. I think they knew their home was a temporary one. They
Left.
Ants can live anywhere.

The little girl nor young woman excite for growth
for the expansion of heart and mind and soul
for BLOOD and BONE and NAILS and TEETH.

The heart was birthed first, beating the WRONG time.
We—THEY—only noticed once it joined the symphony.

If BLEEDING hearts and SICK minds
were tumors and growths
we would cut you with
STAINED chemicals and bright lights.

We don’t want someone with a malfunctioning heart.
We’ll repair you. Make you whole.

We don’t like you like this.
We want the girl we knew,
I WAS never acquainted WITH.

THEY LEFT ME A LONG TIME AGO.
DISAPPEARED AFTER BEING BUTCHERED.

AND
I’M
THE
APHRODITE
THAT
ROSE
FROM
HER
BLOODY
CARCASS.

I AM YOUR LAST REMEMBRANCE OF
W A R.

You are a poor imitation of our little girl—
A SMALL CHILD WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN SAFE,
SHOULD HAVE BEEN PROTECTED.
But you—LET THEM GO MISSING!
YOU WITNESSED THEIR EXECTUION!
AND YOU don’t have the right TO MISS

SOMEONE YOU HELPED BURY!

DON’T GO TO MY FUNERAL
WHILE I’M STILL screamING
FROM SIX FEET UNDER!
SawllowING THE DIRT
YOU THROW ON ME

DON’T dress ME IN THOSE CLOTHES,
AT MY WAKE. THEY’RE TOO tight.

THE AUTOPSY WOULDN’T BE your first time
SOMEONE pull up your skirt.
Don’t worry, I WILL be quiet and still
AND HOPE I look pretty for me.

The general advises the king for the coming battle.
The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
No nation has ever benefited from a prolonged war.
War is not hell; it is deception.

Strategy is more important than the size of an army.
Make many calculations before the battle is fought.
Address the time of day, season, and terrain.
Be flexible as the situation shifts.

The environment determines opportunities.
Defend from the most secret pits of the earth.
Attacks flash from the heights of heaven.
Do not create conveniences for the enemy.

Information on the enemy is key to success;
spies will turn weakness into strength.
Win first, then go to war.
Know the enemy and know yourself.

no religion
as a child my god was my father and my goddess was my mother
and that’s how I excused their suffering
because the gods are stabbed and shot and spat on and suffer eternally
and no one ever notices

and it wasn’t until I was an adult with a-stabbing and a-shooting and a-spitting of my own that
I realised

and dammit
I’m sorry.

I see a newly-painted crosswalk
covered in color-arranged chalk
to mimic the aura of what it once was:

a rainbow crosswalk

leading to the very building
where 49 souls
left bodies behind
dripping blood on the dance floor.

victims of hate-driven gun violence
no reasonable resolutions
in the only country
where these events
are in one ear
out the other

I wonder
what the families think.
did they watch their sons and daughters
baptized in desaturation
as the Department of Transportation
erased the colors away?
was the blood splatter
still fresh beneath the paint?

did these souls flow down the drain,
left to let die
like when cowards stood by,
afraid to infiltrate a building
when loved ones’ lives
were left on the line?

When all that mattered about a bathroom
was if it was a safe place to say goodbye

I see the community gathered
brought together by anger
for the ways in which
the government tries to erase us

their rage to brace themselves
stare daggers into hatred’s snarling face
fan flames with flags
demand the right to be colorful
in their own community

and so when nature
washes the chalk away
they resort to repainting
repaving the way
flowers laid across the lawn

sidewalk sprayed,
OUR HISTORY WILL NOT BE ERASED
protesters say,
WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS

I see the community gathered
further bonded by laughter
and love
and love
and love
will always prevail
over hatred

a rainbow’s more visible in the rain anyway.

She stands on the edge
of the cantilevered bridge
that connects the mountain roads
above the gorge.

On the other side,
we sit outside,
behind the café on
the belvedere,
not looking at our coffees,
not reading our papers,
not looking down at the river
at its low in August,
not trying to call out,
as she wouldn’t hear,
not waving, as the sun
shines at her from above
and behind us,
not trying to call the police,
as they’re too far away.
We already know
how it ends.
Only she knows why.

Some of the bridges
and mountainside roads
have higher railings
but they just climb
the railings and
leap from there.

My friends told me you keep my heart in a birdcage
bring it out at dinner parties
poke and prod it until it performs tricks

I suppose I had been wondering how you’d been treating it.
thought maybe in a room down the hall, propped up on pillows with a
thermometer helplessly dangling out of the aorta
thought maybe you’d keep the curtains drawn for it, wait a bit before prying it out of the sheets
I guess you lost the last strands of your patience.

They said it looked almost pink, about the color of an artificially dyed salmon
that the outside had started to shrivel up like my pruney fingers on the shower floor.
They said all you could talk about was its quiet uselessness,
your arduous task of caring for it, your noble cause in fixing it.
Ha ha. So noble. Ha ha.

It sung for you once, is that the reason?
still soft with hope, still pumping blood at the rhythm of footfalls on a crowded staircase, still
slyly spreading its veins, still so beautiful and so blissfully red you said it reminded you of roses

I suppose I’d be less angry if once you were alone with it you shut it away and forgot about it.
But each night, I feel the afterglow of your rough fingers combing out the arteries, whispers of
hollow encouragement I blame on the wind, and then that all consuming ache in my chest
as you pound and pound it in eventual frustration
trying to get it to beat again.