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i carry your bones in my pocket
the smooth round ends sharpened into knife points i want to spray paint them gold but i only have mustard yellow the ferryman only has one good eye anyway i think about wearing something slutty then i wear nothing mustard bones aren't gold coins he holds the boat still i pretend i am clumsy and trip his one good eye does not move from my left tit i wonder what's wrong with the my right one i hand him my bag of bones he throws them to the side points his bony finger past the fog i nod his breath smells like old attic but i stay close to him wishing i had worn clothes wishing i had gold instead of the condiment colored bones of my enemy at the shore of the dead i lay in the cool black sand bury one bone i saved the ghosts gossip around me and suck the warmth from my skin while waiting for my death flower to grow i watch ferryman's eye twitch as he removes my payment from the bag he bites the bone as if it is a coin i pluck the flower run to the boat shove my left tit in his face and ask him if he sees a spider bite the bone falls from his mouth then i kiss that empty attic tasting space where a mouth should be i throw the bag of mustard bones to the zombie piranhas beneath the boat now that the ferryman gives me free rides i have a whole garden of death flowers that i tend to while singing him led zeppelin songs i tell him he is famous because he is so rich and scary he laughs and it sounds like a roomful of people choking i eat a flower while he rows me back to the living he keeps his good eye on my left tit so i am not sure where we are going
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somewhere in the woods
we sleep on kindergarten nap mats on a hard cabin floor the mats are lined up in rows i don't know if i am camping or if this is yoga class but the mosquito incense isn't working i itch all over then ask the maybe yoga teacher who barks orders at the front if there is something better she scoffs as i turn the packet over in my hands i don't know about that, she says call the number on the back i realize she isn't anyone just mean the room is full of bodies then it is empty i wake up too late every afternoon aching from the hard floor everyone falls asleep at sundown here and is gone by first light i came here with my grandparents my husband but i have only seen them once in some sort of group huddle in the middle of the room whispering with the others that are never here when i am i hear voices behind the cabin get out, they tell me they are coming, i ask if i should be worried as groundhogs scurry past me the man tells me their bite only stings a little the groundhogs are taking things the mats one of my slippers a thin blue blanket i hop around them with my bare feet like they are hot coals before joining the other campers on the grass i came here in a limousine they said it was a vacation the groundhogs drag everything i didn't want into the forest i want it now though i want everything that is gone i wonder if that's where my family is i follow the groundhogs feel the scratch of their curved claws as they climb over my feet one looks back at me as if to tell me hurry up something is coming there is nothing but shadows here shadow trees shadow groundhogs shadow people like paper cutouts rise from the dirt see us hear us they whisper there is no coming back from this there is no coming back from this while the world is ending i decide to quit drinking the medication to fix my broken brain so i wouldn't want to drink got a 10/10 on drugs.com after it built up in my system it gave me such a violent reaction worse than any hangover i could only drink gatorade for three days one more day on those pills i would have ended up in the hospital another drug added to the long list of things my body rejects my intolerance to life manifests itself in a myriad of food and drug allergies i had an allergic reaction to shrooms in college after that i could only do acid the last time i didn't fake smile i was drunk the last time i laughed i was drunk now the only intermission from sadness is anxiety my wine has been replaced with never ending existential terror i would go for a walk but i am allergic to trees and afraid of nuclear fallout and covid and people who aren't afraid of these things it is lonely down here
this space which isn't space at all i am suffocating in this world this requirement of smiley lies pleasantries dead leaves i spend hours raking and bagging beautiful rotten things so i can belong i built up these walls and i don't want them to come down that girl i once was i want to keep for myself and myself alone we are at war against ourselves we are at war against each other nothing changes i watched a news clip of a three year old boy hiding in the rubble in Ukraine he said he knew what was happening and he wasn't ready to die this world is a rotten place build a wall around yourself and hope that child dreams of bricks surrounding him we are headed for a breakdown of everything we have ever known accept that normalcy is gone grieve already stop pretending this is ok time is wavering
in this place where eyes never close live with the crows wake when they blink the man with no face is my guide on occasion he takes his shadow hat off kneel in the dark listening to the nothing is everything at the graveyard of my soul sparrows braid my hair i learn what no one else wants to know we tally the losses the man with no face laughs when i cry he peels his head apart the souls inside are just hands grabbing at me he tells me you can't save them your light is mine my dark is yours everything you want you will have i am your nothing i am your everything look in the mirror my dear what do you see? 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 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
March 2022
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