Category: 2010s

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · How to Unexist · Poetry

Mouth of Fireflies

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

What God there was in me saw
the God there was in him,
and it was beautiful. -Amélie Frank

he speaks floating sparks of light
and lights a thousand eyes around him
he won’t follow their leaving paths
throws them out and lets them land
like seeds he’ll never see grow

I chase the fireflies of his mouth
the ones that miss their mark
I want to catch them in jars
drink them to kill my own night-growing
they sky-float beyond my reach
past the dim canopy of city light

I once drank him like a fountain
my wet lips glowed for days
my eyes shone too bright for sleeping
maybe I only dreamt him at my mouth
since the universe won’t return him
it steals his beauty for dreamers
and says, light your own fire

first you must crack your ribs
break them into brittle shards
cut your palms in your own grasp
next you must rub the sticks
of your rib bones fast
do this all on the inside
then sing out to the dark unknowing

your sparks aren’t made for eyes
your sparks are made to burn hunger
burn the ache in their bellies
throw them out like seeds
don’t wait for them to grow

First published in Cadence Collective.

17 Poems Not About a Lover · 2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

Black, the Consumption of Song

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

It’s still the music—
how is replaces the pulse in your veins
how it stops all the other voices,
your own cut-throat deafening.
You still swallow volume
guzzle it down like hard cider.
In that way, songs can sing from the inside out.
They balloon inside your heart
pressing up against limping muscle
until its ache rests in them.
You will always have it—
when love after love after love leaves
it still gets darker. Still you
wrap your skin in minor chords
mummy-tight until you can only move
in the way the rhythm sways.
You don’t fight that.
For a while you are carried by it.
You rest in black—
how it still comforts you.
Sometimes and eventually music moves you forward.
Slow beats for slow steps
when you are ready to hit the ground
on your own swollen feet.
For the rest of your days, you will—
as you always have—exhale melody.

First published in Cadence Collective.

2010s · Poetry

No Epilogue

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

the pages in this book
are coming to an end
they are thinning out
no epilogue to read
just an end
this chapter is closing
it was inevitable
our story is done
I want to put it down
to make it last
to keep it going
it was an unexpected sequel
you returned to me
there was suspense
and conflict
and romance
these characters changed
our plot turned
each chapter a revelation
but the final twist
it was brutal
no one saw it coming
least not our heroine
and it’s a tragedy
it’s not a happy ending
the mystery was revealed
the story is resolved
I keep turning pages
and it’s thinning out
this will not be a trilogy
I know your part is done
our story is done
I will have to finish
the final pages
and read your last words

First published in Cadence Collective.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

Dead Song

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

I wait no more for your polite
I run no longer to your cordial
I let no wind carry
let no night star
I fight not for your uncertain
for your wander, for your lost
not for your stroke, not your soothe
No more gray ink
photograph gaze
No collar bone
valley of skin
I set fire to your words
I drown your colors
all swirl of rainbow
I lie in your grave of kindness
I cough out your breath
I spit you out
wipe the taste of you
from my mouth

First published in Ekphrastic California.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

Unnamed Color

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

If I were a painter, I’d find the darkest
blue paint—thick as gravy—
push it slow across a powder-white
canvas, diagonal edge to edge,
let the ridges and valleys of the stroke
seep into a settled mass. I’d drag
the brush saturated in blue past
the easel, over my window pane
across my pale green wall
and onto my bed frame. I’d shape
the prints of my hands where I held
myself above you. Where I saw
you under me like a child, like one
who never married, never had children,
never worked twenty years in the same
company, never had to harden his heart
like police armor. I’d paint
the color of your eyes—
if they could ever be captured
in a shade made by man.

First published in Ekphrastic California.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

When I’ve said all the words I can say

Sarah Thursday2 Comments

I can only sound.
I dissonance.
I shutter volume.

I scrape metal to metal
–skyscraper groans
–car alarm until it backgrounds.

I tree crack from roots
–siren ambulance, fire truck.
I bone crush
–violin in a cold, dark alley.

I canyon scream
behind double pane windows.
You, inside, sit soundless.

First published in Ekphrastic California.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

How to Go Backwards

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

Remove hands. Remove tongue. Remove legs.
Leave heart. Leave eyes. Leave voice.
Remove say.
Leave said.
Remove fuck. Remove kiss and dark car.
Leave ache and story.
Remove naked.
Leave cold.
Remove knowing.
Leave knowing.
Remove lover and want.
Leave honest and cordial.
Remove betray. Remove conflict. Remove open.
Leave close. Leave accept.
Remove complicated. Remove layers. Remove hold.
Leave alone. Leave alone. Leave alone.

First published in Cultural Weekly.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · Poetry

If you ask me what I want,

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

I want you unraveled
I want you edge-frayed
I want you seam-busted
threads dragging
I want you broken glass
and rusted gears
tornado torn
tsunami choking
I want you black-eyed
swollen-lipped
nose-bloodied
I want you raw
I want you singed
I want you fat pulled
off the bone
I want you diary-read
secrets on billboards
I want you spit out
I want you dried-up
dead flowers hanging
I want you burnt forest
and dry savannah
I want you limb-splayed
arms tied and hands nailed
I want you teeth-cracked
you feet-blistered
and back broken
I want you heart-dead
voice-cracked
lost-souled
I want you motherless
and child-lost
I want you loveless
and ugly
I want you cheap
and fucked

First published in Cultural Weekly.

2010s · Conversations with Gravel · How to Unexist · Poetry

How to Unexist

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

Go from friend to flirt to lover. Do it fast and without remorse. Stay lover for days or weeks until you become mistress. Be a good mistress until you become secret. Stay secret until you lose the key to his car. Then become lie, not a lie you’ve told but be a lie. Stay lie until your fingers break and you can no longer touch. Then become weight around a neck. One to be carried as heavy as regret. Stay weight until you become formality. Then, become cordial. Become a multiple choice response of hello, how are you, I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re fine, everyone is fine until your fineness becomes echo. Stay echo while you begin to scrape your insides out. Pull out blood vessels. Pull out gut, fat, and muscle. Pull out bone. Lick it clean. Save your heart for last. Let it feel every ounce emptying. Then become translucent. Become as clear as ice so when he looks at you he sees nothing. Hears nothing. Feels nothing. Stay clear until you become forget. Become forget until all previous days dissolve. Stay forget until it never was. Until you are not even ghost. You are just not. Just no.

First published in Cultural Weekly.

2010s · Poetry

Jigsawed

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

I am missing too many pieces
my pieces are broken
my pieces do not match

I am pulling pieces from my mouth
wet and teeth-bent
my pieces fit nothing

I am turning over the edges
over and over and over
my pieces are dizzy
drunk-stained and torn

I am scraping off layers
of Disney-glossed pictures
my pieces are spit gray
my pieces fall behind
tables and wall benches

I am pieces glued on
I am pieces shoved in
I am pieces forced together
pieces and pieces and pieces

all Picasso and bent blue

First published in Ekphrasitc California.