The Poetry Marathon

Your mind is a haunted house.

You send your ghosts away

before they evolve into demons

you can no longer fight.

You can’t move,

you can only build more rooms.

And string Christmas lights

along every wall to add color to this hell.

If you’re lucky you will be able to write again,

creating beauty that won’t be forgotten or ugliness

that makes no sense.

You struggle and push onward.

Don’t give up.

You can do this.

Her husband reminds her to go to the store.

She goes, holding her purse.

She browses the clearance aisle.

And suddenly, the world spins.

Colors blur.

Her body resembles an earth quake.

Walls go up in her head.

And she can’t remember

how to breathe.

She had fought the darkness for so long,

pulling her under

as if the sky has fallen.

Her thoughts were arrows pointing at her,

tearing her down,

shot after shot.

Until she wonders who she is.

What is left.

She can’t remember how to break out.

All she knows is the way back home.

The pen is heavy in my hand,

its shadow is a monster on the wall.

I finish another letter

and set it next to the weeping willow tree.

It disappears when I reopen my eyes.

Rain polka dots my hair

and the sky and I cry together.

My hand is tugged and I glance down

at a red haired child,

eyes the color of the ocean.

I hold her face in my hands

as if I were holding my heart.

Words appear on her forehead.

Forgive –

The rain washes away the second word

before I can read it.

She is gone when I start to speak.

The pen is cold in my hand.

This letter is for her.

I leave the letter where she last stood,

holding out my arms.

Children gather at my feet

as I open a book to read.

A book about how trees whisper to me

when it rains.

Their eyes are bright,

their minds open.

My voice rises and falls

like the ocean.

I read the part about how

the trees mourn their family

as they’re cut down.

They send wisdom through the wind

and if people are present,

the thoughts will be planted in their minds.

I turn pages and add more that isn’t written.

Mermaids can be found

at the sea,

if you hold a seashell out as an offering

while standing in the waves.

The children cry for more at the end

but my voice is gone.

Later, I sit under the weeping willow tree in my yard

and braid my hair.

Rain is coming.

And I am listening.

Hold me in your magic,

I am safe there.

I am here,

writing as my mind skips like a scratched disc.

I delete words and start over.

Fragmented poems have disappeared

and I haven’t waved goodbye.

I am burying shame in its grave,

a deep frown on my face.

Let it go, I pray.

I am planting words in the ground,

watering them everyday,

waiting for poems to bloom.

I watch out my window,

my hands clasped under my chin.

I am checking the mail,

waiting for a letter from my dad.

The ghost of shame comes instead.

You scared him away.

I am not falling in the darkness today.

I am picking poems from their stems,

reading them out loud

and falling in love.

I am pasting them on the walls in my home

and in my memory.

I am not letting go

of hope.