3rd poem on the new site, On the Grid Zine, all about mental health! I wrote “Base of My Spine” a few years ago, but the feeling still applies. My body and my mind in tension. Take a moment to read and look at the others!
Tag: healing
On the Grid Part 2
2nd poem up on On the Grid Zine! This one is “Colors for Bruising” and was one of my more recently written poems. I’m glad it found a home on a site for such an important topic as our mental health.
On the Grid Zine! Part 1
Very excited to have the first of 5 poems, “Dancing with Damage“, posted on On the Grid Zine, a new site dedicated to mental health. Check out them out and send them poetry, essays, and stories about your mental health!
How I Stopped Naming Lost Things
for my birthday
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
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
Love Letter No.1: To My Pit-Bull Self
I love the teeth of your love
how you pit-bull deep
into the flesh of loving
How you make shrines
in the empty spaces,
abandoned apartments
Shrines to former residents
of borrowed books and toiletries
envelopes full of photographs
and letters in pen
How you never fill
the same space with new
but keep building out
expand the frames and floors
How you know when to change the locks
and when to nail it shut
I love how you calculate
estimate the risk
How you trust
the unnamed algorithm
the intuitive push, flashing “Yes,
love this one, let that one in!”
How soft your wrought-iron grip
holds every name tight
each face, its own story
each moment, a glass in your pane
How you refuse to argue
about the wrong
or right way to love
I love how so much of it matters
how you will forgive
as many times
as they will call
and ask for it
How you defend this weakness
with the expense of wasted time
Your time-to-give being
your love currency
not words, not gifts,
not your doing-for-me
But your minutes and hours
your speak to me, eat with me
your listen and watch with me
sit in this space of air
I breathe with me is love
I love how love-greedy you get
How you collect time
and stuff it in bags and boxes
shove it on shelves, in closets
covering walls, blocking doorways
in empty apartments
You guard-dog this house
an unapologetic hoarder
How you refuse to purge it
refuse to loosen your grip
Set shrines in windowsills
light blood candles
There is always room
for more
2-3-14
Originally published in Silver Birch Press, Self-Portrait Series.
Also listen on Soundcloud.
In-Flight Literary Magazine Issue # 3
The newest issue of In-flight Literary Magazine is out today! I have two very different poems up, “What I Mean When I Say My House Is Now a Park” and “Paint”. One is a memory of my young childhood house that has since been demolished and the other is a lyrical poem. There are many other fabulous poets, including my friend, Don Kingfisher Campbell. Take a few minutes and read a poem for the first day of National Poetry Month!
East Jasmine Review Volume 2 Issue 4
The new East Jasmine Review is out now! You can download this lovely literary journal for the price of a fancy coffee. It is packed full of amazing authors such as: Sean Gunning, John Brantingham, Kelsey Bryan-Zwick, Natalie Morales, Michael Cantin, and Zack Nelson-Lopiccolo. I am especially happy that two of my poems based around my dysfunctional family, “Both Wolves and Sheep Alike” and “Drawing Maps for the Lost”, are included. You can download it for many e-reader devices or on PDF.
NCCP Book Club
This is really a thing I am doing. Nancy Lynée Woo and I are part of a book club discussion from the National Center for Children in Poverty, which chose our book, Gutter & Alleyways: Perspectives on Poverty and Struggle. Sometimes I still feel like that girl living on the constant edge of chaos, fighting to survive. Then I see this photo of grown up me, all together and stuff. If you have the time to join the discussion on March 18th (11:00 am Pacific Time), I would be honored to share this moment with you. Follow this link to register nccp.org/bookclub.html. It’s not too late to order your copy of the book in time for the discussion if you haven’t already. sadiegirlpress.com/bookstore
Sonic Screwdriver
for Josh
I wish I had a sonic screwdriver
I wish I had a magic wand
I wish I had a time machine
or pixie dust or a book of spells
I wish I had a genie lamp
I wish I had the holy grail
I wish I had a flying carpet
or a portal or an Atlantis key
I wish you were three
in the back seat of my car
singing an 80s Cure song
I wish you were sixteen
driving with me to open mic
singing an 80s Cure song
I wish my love was enough
I wish you weren’t there
I wish you and me were anywhere
far and away, anywhere else
Originally published in Carnival Lit Mag, 2014
Westwood Boulevard (Why I Can’t Go Back)
I.
because I’d have too many questions
like does her husband know
have you ever met her children
do your parents know about her
does she hate your new car
or your new 60-inch TV
does she love the extra 20 pounds
I left behind
II.
because I know exactly
how small your ass really is
how you taste in the shower
how your eyes are lost
first thing in the morning
how you loved those thin pillows
from World War II
how you bought a fat one
just for me
how I know you really meant it
at the time
III.
because I’m still counting days
they are all anniversaries
of first times, of last times
of times we drove for no reason
my calendar dates lay over
like a transparency
so it’s all how-long-since
how-many-days-until-it’s-been
and every case on People’s Court
mentions November and Hurricane Sandy
then we’re standing there on the Boulevard
you said we need to talk
find some place for dinner
we missed our movie
I could unmake plans with you all weekend
it was cold enough to wear a sweater
I can almost count the hours
IV.
because I forgot to hate you
though you really wished I would
V.
because I told everyone
with eyes or ears near these words
I spoke you out loud
I own my story—this is mine
I will love it long after your scent
is rubbed off my page
First published in Tic-Toc Anthology (Kind of a Hurricane Press).
Sarah Thursday 