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![]() when the hunted
becomes the huntress a warrior is born at twilight you come alive walking in the dark with only your senses lay your fears at the door your demons can't harm you when you harness them to do all the dirty work your familiar is a leopard she escorts you on this unknown path the spots on her hide are all the stars in the night sky step in to eternity Artemis has just given you a gift
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that first weekend in college
I ran in the woods in nothing but a suede coat fringed in fur and my panties barefoot and laughing as the branches scratched my legs a frat boy followed beer can in hand he was safe in that foolish way he giggled every time he took a drink a leprechaun emerged we ran through the woods in this dead end freedom of adulthood and childhood so blurred we couldn't comprehend later with grass in our hair we would fall asleep on the floor of his dorm room wake up the next morning picking twigs out of our ears amidst the empty beer cans we would realize how different we were my blond hair and fur coat would be a story he could tell but his football jersey and lite beer can is something I would hide all his trophies seemed to point at me as I left the room walking over pizza boxes and sleeping bodies we couldn't find my pants and he laughed in a jealous way as I left him there with bare legs wearing my fur like a fox in my youth I let them chase me in the woods on dark nights with no fear because I was fast and fun the trees seemed to carry me the wind picked me up when I stumbled where has the time gone? that girl so sure she could out run anyone is now a woman that wants to sit and think write about when the world was whirling past hourglass I won't tip you yet let me watch each grain of sand let me remember when I saw you when I first turned you over hoping for time to pass the man in the portal
showed me his life from birth to death while an angel played charades showing me all the things she needed me to know obviously she didn't know I haven't played much charades the woman in white might have been a woman or the little girl that was haunting me with the hoofed demon that was trapping her in this realm she belongs in the night sky not earth bound but bound for infinity somewhere even I can't see this was just the middle of my strange happenings the beginning began in a barn when I was no more then four a little boy with his brains showing through the back of his head we roamed the fields as playmates until I moved to a different house a different town a small triangle hole is in the floor next to my sliding glass door the dogs are mystified by it it seems to project all the latest activity demons with their jagged teeth alien light beings that stare with their big eyes and mute subtraction sign smiles spirits all twisted out of shape if I look to long in that direction a graveyard appears on the porch the grim reaper with his bone face is the head of this field trip I tell them it is closing time go on get out I have to write now but they are mad they wasted their haunting hours last night helping me put together a manuscript where they were the stars I light some incense and shush them I can't hear myself think one ghost dissolves into a chair I ignore them but they don't care my dog barks near the camera suddenly they are friends they all want to pose for a picture while chanting we exist we exist I have to go now keep them company as they have done for me all they want to do is watch haunting shows in the absence of light
I find myself digging beneath this world for answers hidden in the past as a child I ate the buds of tiger lilies while my mother sat on the red paint chipped porch steps always looking somewhere in the distance as if she had lost herself on the way to here her present was me tugging on her legs with a broken butterfly in hand a mouth full of clover to sweeten a childhood I had still yet to find I never ate the poison plants a voice whispered not to eat the sharp red berries it was not my mother but the sky and the dirt beneath my feet who cradled me while my teenage mother wished for freedom I wanted to go where she was to be with her in that faraway place my time would come soon enough I followed in her grieving footsteps found my own soul in the dark night I seek the truth truth is the only light these deep wounds have opened me to discover all that there has been all that there is and all that there will be is within me the magic of knowing your own power is just as beautiful as the pain that got you to here behind me
a woman in white emerges leading the pack of hungry ghosts that wait for me the veil is so thin now I hear their whispers she stands at the crossroads holding a serpent staff she is my guard her torch lights an unknown path she smells of jasmine and moonflower behind her are all the lost souls her entourage is flanked by the grim reaper at first I mistook his scythe for a pointy hat but I could not mistake his grin for a smile only sickness was seeping out his pointed teeth a wild woman sits in front of a fire her hair is the color of mine an ancestor from long ago sees me through her smoke conjure my new friends won't leave my side I am one of them they tell me I see them in windows mirrors in pools of water the woman in white is holding a ring of skeleton keys she jangles them so that I can hear my destiny I open the door winding wind sweeps its way in spirits ride along contorted faces stretching like putty into smiles so ghastly I have to look away they are under my charge now a gift from the woman in white my vagabond spirits fill the house with a sigh changing forms to see what pleases me they touch everything like too eager children moving my knick knacks about until I ask them to be still and quiet they return to the back porch to wait until needed turning their strange faces up to the moon in meditation they freeze like statues I put the key in my pocket for safe keeping as the woman in white disappears in the windows reflection the grim reaper takes a bow and laughs when his scythe comes too close to me and I jump his laugh is thunder cracking the branches of a tree he follows her faint reflection and I take a deep breath so glad it is not my last I am cold
for several hours now I have been shivering while my dog barks at a spot next to me I know I am not alone in this pain and those who want to comfort me are making the room feel like a refrigerator I sit in the dark with the dead reminding me that being alive is better in my sadness I wonder why they are the only ones here isn't that enough of a sign to remind me of where I belong? my mother once told me to not trust anyone that you could only count on yourself I thought she was jaded I thought she just had enough of people fucking her over now I realize her words were of experience of wisdom right now alone in the dark I am rethinking my entire life what I could take before I can't take anymore I always wanted safety and stability but what is the cost of that? believing in something that doesn't exist unless you create it yourself with boundaries and self respect I keep giving away everything that I am to the man that comes along with a smile he picks me up when I am rock bottom knee deep in demons he slays them with his own I think this man is going to be the one that saves me but I am always left holding emptiness crying holding my own carcass in my hands the dead stand next to me holding their hollow souls we share the pain of knowing how alone all of us really are reality is a jagged line written in red pen white pebbles leave a trail in the deep dark forest are you Hansel? are you Gretel? are you the witch? the children always return to the dad that abandoned them to die when his bitch wife didn't feel like feeding them and where was their sweet mother? that would have given her life for theirs buried behind the house daddy probably told them it was a fever he couldn't break but we all know he just didn't give a shit when he realized he had two kids to raise no money no bread baking skills he married the bitch from town who could count coins and was shrewd enough to realize if they wanted to survive the children had to be sacrificed in the deep dark wood the daughter was smart maybe her wise mother rose from the dirt to whisper in her ear how to fucking survive so this little girl had to save her brother kill some old hag and give her idiot dad the treasures she had gotten with her inherent survival skills Gretel's future is fated taking care of the man that murdered her mother and maybe even her evil stepmother she will have to raise her fat little brother that was too stupid to outsmart an old blind witch the weight this little girl has to carry she doesn't even get to enjoy the treasures she got she had to cook an old woman alive now all she has is nightmares while she takes care of everyone she dreams of freedom she dreams of riding horses in the wind eating bread she hasn't baked and a man that won't make her go through this all over again she still keeps a pocketful of white pebbles to drop in the dark night because if there is one thing she has learned its that you can't trust a man to do what's right her skirts are heavy with abandonment issues while her father and brother count the gold she got them her mother and stepmother lay buried in the backyard she knows her fate if she doesn't stay smarter then them and succumbs to thinking they value her she will be in the backyard as well the next time Gretel makes dinner she will pocket the knife with her pebbles what she can hide from them is what keeps her safe I dream of a severed hand
wind sweeping through an open window in a bedroom from one of my past lives I try to hide from the hand as it searches for me with its thumb heavy spider crawl distant voices scatter about me an incantation song I ask if this is my sign the hand make its way to me offers up an open palm with a heavy jewel laden ring I bend down take the ring and slip it on my left hand the curtains open revealing a fertile silver moon I don't know what to do I say standing there talking to the wind feeling like a fool the severed hand lays immobile at my feet its purpose has been served a breeze carries a voice past my ear so faint I can't hear it but it calms me I know I will wake up now that something has been set in motion I wake up and suddenly know the window of time has been opened but soon it will close I feel a sense of urgency all my lives are converging dominoes lined up in perfect order in that tower bedroom many lifetimes ago I told myself a story then I manifested it again and again into many lifetimes this is my last one my old soul longs for the night sky when it is complete I will swirl in the cosmos of creation just matter, dust, and stars the heat of hades is beckoning
so hard to bear the cold hearted stone eyed statues who block my path as divinity bleeds chaos true mothers know the dark reveals the light of fire within fire was the first light the ember of rocks colliding on one cold night I have been handed the key I wait with the dead in the dark open doorway between worlds while you all twiddle your thumbs in the abyss of hope fallen angels have no feet we drift with the shadows of humanity don't turn your head at every lie it is how the world began and how it will end slippery words on slithering lips make the world go round hitch a ride on this haunted carousel the power is in the turning round and round you will get dizzy while I merge with the moon today there was momentum
like when you pump your legs to make the swing go so high you feel dizzy and have to close your eyes while walking the dogs I see a dead sparrow its jagged broken wing a scar on the bright green grass my wintered skin defrosts under the suns blind halo today I left my cave to join the world outside starbuck's target trader joe's errant errands to pass the tick tocking time bomb I hold my daughters hand at the drugstore when her arm winces from the needle I reward her with a new teddy bear that she holds the rest of the day with her unaffected arm I cook a dinner that has meat vegetables and a starch walk the dogs again clean the kitchen until the counters sparkle like in a commercial for cleaning products today I was a good mother I didn't listen to records backwards I didn't drink a bottle of wine while writing existential death poems I read a wholesome travel book washed my daughters new summer clothes gave the dogs their flea meds now that my mind is a corn husk I hope my reward is sleep |
AuthorMichelle Tinklepaugh Archives
April 2023
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