The Poetry Marathon

Dear me,

Once, you had cotton candy princess hair.

You had butterflies in your tummy and
noble intentions made your heart beat.
You had a soft voice, giggly laugh, and couldn’t
ever remember where you put your phone.

Music was your oxygen.
Poetry was the only language you understood.
You lived for books and learning and silence.

Now, you have a cotton candy heart.

You have moths in your stomach and
bitter outlooks block your aorta,
You have a hard voice, RBF, and can’t seem
to let your Iphone out of your hand long enough for it to cool.

Music brings the tears, so it’s better not to breathe.
Poetry is the only way to cover scars.
You live to sleep now and search for friendly faces and
you always look for the exit before you sit down.

Your soul was pretty, pink bubbles and glitter and hope.
Now, it’s hardened stone, just waiting to be rolled away.

I hope for our sake, you get better.
Breath some music and eat some words.
You can’t be this numb forever.

Love,
Me

In the darkness of the Underworld,
a faded hush fills the lungs of every soul.
Moonbeams light the way
for a little goddess to tiptoe alongside
purple Water Lilies and peachy pink Lotuses.

Persephone wrists and the curve of her neck
share the same pale hue as her inner thighs.

The Lord of the Dead watches her,
his daring little goddess, and
his concrete self control weakens again.
He might be damned to live without her.

On a shelf, in an office, deep in Tarturus,
Hades’ soul waits, a lone jellyfish,
barbed with stingers of loneliness and hate.

His pink little goddess of Spring could smell
his soul, like ripe plums and honeysuckle in
an August heat. Her teeth nibble on her bottom lip.

On tiptoes once more, she reaches for his soul.
She feels its’ fog of uncertainty. To be alone for so long.
To have waited for so long.
“But, I’m here now,” she whispers to
the inky blackness enclosed in hard glass.

Hades’ opens his arms upon her return,
she can’t help but leap into them.
Guiltily she shows him the jar-
together they mend the God of the Underworld.
“I was waiting for you too, you know?” she sighs into his lips.

Together they make a King and Queen.

I have this tiny, little, guilty pleasure.
Sometimes, I don’t look where I’m going,
and I make men walk around me.
You see, it’s funny because they
walk right through me instead

They cut me off, and I apologize.
They cheat on me, and I apologize.
They lie to me, and I apologize.
They attack me, and I apologize.

Another guilty pleasure:
I date the wrong guys.
The guys who can’t keep rhythm,
and don’t understand reason.
You see, it’s perfect because then,
they can always blame me.

I said stop, and I apologized.
I said go away, and I apologized.
I said please, and I apologized.
I said don’t, and I apologized.

A tiny, little, guilty secret:
whether he was pinning me to the ground
or holding a gun against my head,
I was asking for it,
or at least that’s what my mother said.

Yuck…this needs a lot of reworking, but here it is….

In Neverland, all parts of our childhood hide:
the boy of our youth, the girl of our dreams, and the man of our nightmares,
living by sun and moon, land and sea, adventure and book.

In Neverland, selfishness rules:
a crocodile eating the weak, lost boys who never grow up, and the man with the hook,
but even in Neverland, love is required, so

Tinkerbell was always there for Peter, and Peter, he chose Wendy.

In this sea full of strangers,
apologies leak from my mouth,
surmounted by an ocean of guilt and shame.

I am not who they made me to be.
I am not delicate or tender.

Thick, dark, cruel waves crash down
on your soft, heartfelt intentions.
The depths of me are yet to be discovered;
Those who have tried have been buried at sea.

I am not your mother or friend.
I am not a gentle song for a quiet night.

In this sea full of strangers,
accusations drip from their mouths,
Surmounted by an ocean of “I warned yous”.

Nothing is stronger than a mother’s love.
She is witch and woman.
Maternal horror and nightmare to all.

When blood creeped down
Rapunzel’s legs, her mother knew
It was time.

“A room is a small thing of walls,
but your mind is so much more.
We must protect you.”

The witch was right as only a woman can be.

The men came from all over,
calling to young Rapunzel,
“Let down your hair. Open your legs.
That’s how we’ll teach you to behave.”

Rapunzel let down her hair,
wrapping it around their necks,
slicing her tendrils off in chunks.

She loves watching their bodies sway.
The chiming of their bones taught her to dance.
The yells of their surprise taught her to sing.
The pull of their hands taught her to fight.

Her mother helped her survive,
trapped in a world full of hungry, wolfish men.

In tarot, the three of swords
warns of conflict, sorrow, and heartache.

Three sharpened swords pierce a heart
at three harsh angles.

Brother. Father. You.

I can feel the three of swords pulse in my deck,
jump under my fingers,
singing of my past, present, and future.

I learned quickly that
bad things happen in threes —
and knowing that, doesn’t make
anything easier.

I am the distant, divorced, defiant daughter
of parents who persistently ponder
why I can’t just settle for simple.

I trust these trouble-makers to tell
me the honest, blunt truth.

I married simple, and simply put, I smiled sweetly
while he wiped away our forever
without wrestling with whether or not it would
kill me.

When you awake to the fact, that-
“good” is an adjective
not a personality trait,
simple stops looking so sweet.

Heavy rock guitar strains on a $5 speaker three floors down.
Smogged marijuana smoke clouds drift higher than my neighbors.
Cumin and garlic marinate this entire apartment complex.
Little clacks from this keyboard make my dog’s ears shift.
Russian, African America, Middle Eastern, and me.

The men next door won’t meet my eyes, but the women love me.
We dance in stairwells, shifting from left to right,
singing, “excuse me,” and, “I’m sorry,”
to the tune of our differences don’t matter here
from an album titled If you need anything, let me know.

The woman below me is Mama. She is strong and her laugh carries,
and I’d rather hear her laugh at 3 a.m., then ever listen to her cry.
I know she knows when we fight and I know that she prays for us.

The people here are whole,
but you wouldn’t know it from looking at any of us.
We are broken too,
but with every pitch of music, every puff and drag, every loud conversation,
we are pulling ourselves back together together,
and it feels pretty damn good.