bruised blunders
when
i was a kid
i played with those
dolls on those sports teams
and in those parks.
experimented with paint, clothes,
makeup.
heard my parents
fight till dawn every
full moon like howling wolves
until they split
like shattered glass.
flying north to south from one broken home to another
feeling those slaps, I wore them like dresses
spun with the scars on my lip till they faded
like my dad who
washed-out of my life.
i think it broke me mom.
i know my childhood wasn’t always
the color of night
but after every line in my poetry
it leaves me wondering, why I can’t write about
tea time or veggie burgers or cold summer nights.
but i still wear it all with a smile,
with a cigarette between my fingers
and the taste of last night on my tongue,
i empty it all into my midnight bottle in hopes
that someone feels this way too.
is this voice in my head going to shut up?
why can’t it be silenced by band aids and poetry?
i think im broken mom.
but I still try
to hold my big heart in my small hands
not knowing why I feel things so heavily.
fade in and out when needed but never
really here
erasing the times that are so dark I can’t see
but it keeps showing up
In every coffee sip it goes down
harder than that hit when I was seven.
but then I spin, in my skirt
and remember the times so dark
i needed a flashlight and the feeling
of dark never ceases.
i want to write about how butterflies leave their cocoons,
and about my first lust.
i see it,
i see it like the smile I had when I was four,
as if god was pulling at the corners of my mouth.
and now, I just need him to pull a little harder
tug, I don’t want to be the scarred little girl
so I turn on all the lights, clean out all the wounds
but it doesn’t help
spin in as many dresses as you want
and talk about flowers that you wish grew from your
finger tips instead of needles.
but the thoughts are still there
crushing me
im broken mom
i’m trying to just turn in this dress
but I slip in dark thoughts of bruised blunders
and it all is dark again.
