Kind words about my upcoming full-length book from Donna Hilbert. Preorders for Conversations with Gravel are available though October 5th at the SadieGirlPress.com bookstore. You can pay $3 for shipping or select Pick Up if you are local when you first open your Cart. Pay only $9 with promo code: PresaleCWG at the Checkout stage.
Sometimes I let Damage win.
We’ve been wrestling for days
on the edge of my teeth.
No matter how much hair pulling
or ear biting, sometimes
I give in.
I curl up like a small child
and lie in her bony lap.
Some may say I wear her
like a cross on my back,
but she’s the one wearing me,
wraps my heart around her like a cape,
splits my head across her knees
using them as shin guards.
As a child, she ran me
like a bully-sister,
warded off the boys
like Buffy with her stake.
She kept all my keys under her tongue
clenched by pit-bull teeth.
I learned to pick my battles.
She can sleep for weeks at a time
in her coffin-bed night.
That’s when I dance all night,
swim moonlight-naked,
run head-first for love,
and make no more apologies.
When she wakes again, she yanks me down,
my legs kicking–my fists punching. I thought
I was done with her. I thought
we’d shared our last breaths–
but we’re here again, now.
So I let her pull me into her embrace,
crying like a knee-scraped school girl.
Then, after a while, D and I lie on our backs,
listen to records as loud as we can,
and sing along until our throats hurt.
First published in On the Grid Zine.
Kind words about my upcoming full-length book from Mariano Zaro. Preorders for Conversations with Gravel are available though October 5th at the SadieGirlPress.com bookstore. You can pay $3 for shipping or select Pick Up if you are local when you first open your Cart. Pay only $9 with promo code: PresaleCWG at the Checkout stage.
1. Swell: fluids rush in panic, raise the skin
like a flag, damage still unassessed
2. Purple: t-shirt logo wearing of pain, most
celebrity, most sympathy for self
3. Blue: first layer under, uglier, sign of longer
lasting mark
4. Green: usually on the edges only, ghost
sleeping under your skin
5. Brown: dead blood vessels dissolving,
novelty gone, even you don’t want to look
6. Orange: almost gone enough to be rubbed
off with spit and thumb, will it away
7. Yellow: untraceable outlines only faith
remembers, sing it a lullaby, let it go undreamt
First published in On the Grid Zine.
Kind words about my upcoming full-length book from Alexis Rhone Fancher. Preorders for Conversations with Gravel are available though October 5th at the SadieGirlPress.com bookstore. You can pay $3 for shipping or select Pick Up if you are local when you first open your Cart. Pay only $9 with promo code: PresaleCWG at the Checkout stage.
A fluttering tension rests
at the base of my spine
a tight coil bound by string
wound up, spiraling
to the base of my neck
I try to sooth it, I say
“I love you, base of my spine”
but it only trembles
I try to ease it, tips of my
fingers trace the lines up
through the base of my skull
pressing soft, I say to it
“I love you, base of my skull”
but it only tightens
I try to listen yet it will
not relax or surrender
it will not release control
I say, “I love you, tender skin”
but my heart knows what
my body is suffocating for
First published in On the Grid Zine.
Excited to introduce the artist, Jennifer Takahashi, whose work is included in our next release, Conversations with Gravel.
Photo by Brock Scott
Jennifer Tara Takahashi grew up near the ocean, camping across California and dreaming under chirimoya trees in her grandmother’s wild back yard. This connection with nature is an important part of who she is as a teacher, artist and woman. She is an artist without the ability to commit to one material, since she enjoys the thrill of learning new techniques. Jennifer explores mixed media, watercolor, fiber arts, silk painting as well as creating crochet ocean meditation stones, fine silver jewelry and once-was-a-sweater plush animals. She creates art to convey serenity, love and to remind others of the joy and healing that connecting with nature can bring. With this in mind, Jennifer opened The Grateful Dandelion Atelier, a children’s studio in Pacific Beach, California, which offers classes in yoga, mindfulness, storytelling and the arts. She looks forward to sharing the hand work, creativity and relaxation that…
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This is where I don’t know what’s next
this is where I get lost in the desert
forty years of circle wandering
This is where I try to fill the cracks
this is where I see how much I can fit
how many pages I can write
how many nights of alcohol
pushing limits where I thought I’d stop
the line I wouldn’t cross
This is where I close my eyes and lay back
in the thick sea salt floating
underneath stars I can never count
This is where I stop
naming anyone friend or lover
There is where I keep stirring
the increasing mess of me
dissolve the powder
I am pudding-thick and ready to serve
This is where I am the forest fire and
the arsonist and the fireman
mask wearing and sweating smoke
This is where the word you
is cut out in tiny rectangles
and collected in bags for confetti
where I forget what clocks I am watching
what timeline I had to follow
all the things called age appropriate
This is where I am done
and done and done knowing
that I ever knew
First published in On the Grid Zine.
Thanks to Ellen Weber, my entire set from my feature at the Ugly Mug on July 25, 2018 was recorded and compiled into a playlist. Half of which are poems from my last chapbook, Seventeen Poems Not About a Lover, and from my next full-length book, Conversations with Gravel.
I’m really excited to announce my newest full-length collection of poetry, Conversations with Gravel, being released early in October 2018. This collection was 5 years in the making with poems based on love, heartbreak, and coping with loss. It’s 110-pages, perfect bound with cover and interior gorgeous art by Jennifer Takahashi. This book can be purchased on SadieGirlPress.com and soon at Made by Millworks in Long Beach. Preorder online with the discount code PresaleCWG.
Sarah Thursday 