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drive this hearse/into the storm/when the road signs go dark/kneel at the altar/ everything/ that should be forgotten/ won't burn this candle/when you bury yourself /after your stepdad kicks you down the stairs/you break on the floor/his screams/will be the soundtrack/to the rest of your life when watercolor bruises/ bleed beneath your skin/you will tell yourself/this is art/ getting beat doesn't matter/when your existence/ is just white noise bleeding knees/ mean you are alive/when he is kicking you in the back/ leave your body watch yourself from up above i am here/ i am not/ she is an anthill/ that he steps on it is a relief/when the shadows come/ they drink your tears/ they hide you/where he can't find you/where you can't find yourself/this never ending free fall memories crossed out in black pen/my head is a dilapidated library i should help her/ instead/i watch her suffer/ call it art/she is me/we listen/ to the static/to remember everything/ we were supposed to forget/ my girlhood ghost/ won't stop haunting me
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at the grave of my soul i beg the dirt to save my child a record skips to the past my mother in a prison waiting room emptiness is already blooming in my bones i smile at the guard and he looks away this is the day my mother lost all her tears the ivy prison where my inked fingerprints bled like blood my daughter's father will lie like the man behind the table in her sleep angels whisper the truth she doesn't listen her daddy's lies are a potent elixir in the end the demons save her my child fingerprints in prison ink mix with the tears of my teenage mother destiny is conjured a rag doll consecrated in a prison water fountain my daughter was just making a pact to be born then water fountain tears a table of splintered lies cruel men run rough hands over surfaces and don't feel anything my dead dad knocks at the door behind me he wants to make amends i tell him to do my bidding save your granddaughter from a liar like you a bully a brute i peel his prison tattoos while i tell him this burn them as an offering he has no choice now no where to go i send him images of my teenage mother while he beat her he thinks i was too young to remember her bent beneath him while he held a beer bottle over her head my mind is all fire as i recall how i came to be his rape made me this shaman witch a child the demons born within me turn on him i watch them feed off him in that prison waiting room fluorescent lights and mint green walls stale gum and smoke i watch from the corner with my rag doll i am only 3 a strawberry embroidered on my shirt is my hope and also the gaping hole that never leaves me and consumes this room i touch the water fountain my toddler fingers drip black blood ink i don't drink from the prison spout i will be thirsty for the rest of my life my mother's tears are beautiful to everyone here they are all sadist the doll and i know this and come to an agreement that life is shit dead daddy i am sending you another shitty father a liar just like you to keep you company in your cell i give you this present a tattoo gun so my poetry bleeds on every inch of his skin hold him down like you held my mother hold him down like that girl who was my age and sat on a bench one day to tell me you raped her we had the same name i believed her you made it so my daughter doesn't believe me daddy he won't feel a thing he is just as cold as you the only difference is he went to college and grad school i walk this never ending
spiral staircase at night words spill out i go to the places where i got lost my stepfather in his recliner dissolving pain pills on his tongue he holds my wrist tells me his dreams they are just nightmares he doesn't want me to forget my first boyfriend wears cologne it comes from a bottle that looks like a red shotgun shell my body is still an illusion then it needs to be to survive i am wallpaper i am the window i am the rug i am the night sky looking in trapped in this room you are the nightmare above me some man some boy who doesn't care i never stop picking at the wounds that you leave i am a dartboard throw words at me hit the bullseye too many times i laugh at my reaction you came from my blood and now this in an old apartment building we are a movie haunted descend the staircase run from everything i forgot to tell you until now time is useless the instant you lock every door i have given you the key to open it is my fault the mother ghosts line up behind me we walk down steps hearts skewered to hold like candles one day you will hold your heart like this in the dark walk these never-ending steps you will be a mother ghost too in the blue hour
past sunset past the pink light of promise night is its own consciousness what is real only becomes real now we are wild animals roaming the forest daylight is just a man with a gun trying to prove his worth nightmares sit in metal folding chairs waiting to watch the world end i lose myself in another world a spiral unraveled stealing stars light years from now i will remember this black hole how its beginning was just another end and i was just a fool juggling stars listening to the echo of nothing thinking it was everything |
AuthorMichelle Tinklepaugh Archives
June 2023
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