Tag: healing

2010s · Anchors (Poetry with Music) · Poetry · Recordings · The Unnamed Algorithm

If I Ever Have Children

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

If I ever have children
they will never know me in my thirties
the woman checking it off
all the things-to-do
like a master’s degree
and home buying
like falling in love completely
and writing a book of how it ends
finding new community
and loving her whole body flawed
flinging open all the doors
and surrendering to the unknown next

If I ever have children
they will never know me in my twenties
the woman fighting against it
to save her own soul
find her own belief in God
and lose her given self
venture out from community
live alone, love alone
sort through the old baggage
give them names and abandon them
find focus for talents and energies
and heal the damage at all costs

If I ever have children
they will never know me in my teens
young girl trying masks
on and off each year
like too many friends
and partying far too young
like black dyed-hair and boots
sinking down through the cracks
sharp turn into a Christian life
and a radical-faced community
stepping through the windows
where she’d press her face to the glass

If I ever have children
they will never know me as a child
a broken girl holding
a green Picasso heart
running with one parent from the other
always leaving school early
memories in paper bags stashed
in the trunk of a broken-down car
with walk-in closets for the skeletons
and attics for hiding and running free
words swallowed in torn pieces
forcing her destiny as a poet

 

Originally published in The Mayo Review, also included in The Unnamed Algorithm.
Listen to the poem on SoundCloud, from Anchors CD.

2010s · Poetry · The Unnamed Algorithm

White Sandals

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

A ten year old girl
stood in the alleyway

in white buckled sandals
that made her feel too tall—

like someone twelve not ten
like someone more carefree,

sandals for a girl who could just
be a girl and not—

one begging her mother not
to walk away,

pleading her only parent to stop
going farther down

into the alleyway dark.
Heels slightly wobble and tilt

on bare red ankles
on ten year old legs

always ready to run.

4-20-13
(Originally published in Disorder: Mental Illness and Its Affects)

2015 · Publications

In-Flight Literary Magazine

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

paper-plane Issue #2 of In-Flight Literary Magazine is now available for your viewing pleasure! I am very pleased to have two poems I am especially fond of included, “Paper Airplane” and “Gill Growing”. The feature poet of this issue is fellow Gutters & Alleyways contributor, Anthony Khayat.  In addition to poetry, this site also features fiction pieces. Take some time and read some creative work with your new year. Get inspired and send them some of your own for the next issue!

2010s · All the Tiny Anchors · Poetry

Flourish

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

The possibility of birth since our death
has passed, yet— in nine months
a new life is here now, where you abandoned us.
This Thursday girl, my child, my only daughter,
has become the woman you will never know, like
you once knew
the most unlit folds of me.

I birthed her from my own black ashes and none
of the fragile skin of you. She lives in my night side,
grows in those thick shards, those tire weight pocks.
She flourishes in the white vacuum space you
sucked out from me
like a plane window under pressure cracked,
spidering—
instantly gone.

She loves the deafened stillness and
grows in my gnawing hunger, grows out
through my fingernails and the follicles
of my new hair-the softness of which
you will never know—
like you once knew the lather and rinse of it.
 
First published in The Mayo Review (2014), also appears in All the Tiny Anchors.

2010s · All the Tiny Anchors · Poetry

Cathedral

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

I take you with me
like a chain around my wrist
I took you through security
brought you to England
and on the bus to Wales
I pushed you up my arm
with bangles clinking soft

I went to Ireland to forget
the sound of your low voice
in every hotel you wait
for me to sleep without you
under pillow-white comforters
and clouds under roads
of endless miles and miles

I change my nightshirt
I change my long pants
but I find you there
in the bottom of my shoes
I met a poet who married an artist
after years and years of not
their deep folds of white skin
stinks of my undreamt dreams

I count the days unhad
in the cracks of aging stones
in ancient Scottish castles
dissolving like dead paper
black and grey and brown

they all eat like you
knives leading forks
in sway and swoon
painting food on plates
but only in reverse
pinks follow greens
orange and tan rising up
leaving only empty white

five thousand miles
two hundred days
I can’t dilute you out
filling red wine with water
flowing over the rim
I see you in the gift shop
and in the hotel shower
I leave without you
touching my own skin
brushing my own hair

I am whole without you
like a lone cathedral tower
gray stones on stones
without walls or ceilings
for centuries it stands
without congregation
or faithful believers
still, it stands without you

First appeared in The Mayo Review (2014), also in All the Tiny Anchors

2010s · Poetry · The Unnamed Algorithm

The First Her

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

It’s always dusk or dawn
in my memory. When I open my eyes,
she smiles or I see laughter in the house
though I know those days were heavy
with labor. She does laundry
in the kitchen while she cooks me eggs.
I will always eat my vegetables for her.
She always moves across this
dimly lit room. If I watch her longer,
the sun must go down. It gets
very dark for days, dark for years.
I can hear her hum, though I never
remembered her humming.
I am so small and hate to have
my hair brushed. She is every
thing that connects me
to this earth. She gives me
folded clothes to put away: my rainbow
t-shirt sparkling glitter in my hands.
Her long straight hair is perfect,
a hippie part down the middle,
always pulled back in a loose ponytail.
I remember plants in the window sills,
long green and yellow leaves.
I don’t remember how
she cared for them.
She cleans other
people’s houses, burns
her hands on the chemicals.
I will climb her ladders,
I will hold her razor blades
on my fingertips. No one
will notice these scars until I show them.

4-26-14
First published in East Jasmine Review.

2014 · Publications

Hedgerow #6

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

I have a poem called “Unnamed” on the 6th issue of this lovely site, Hedgerow: A Journal of Small Poems. Take a few minutes and read some beautiful poetry. Oh, then send them some of your own!

cropped-cropped-cropped-hedgerow-header-3-img_0366_edited-1

2010s · All the Tiny Anchors · Poetry

The Truth of My Skin

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment

Pores in my skin once
empty are now full of black
coarse hairs. Growth once fine

and translucent, now
pushes out beyond the surface,
my body in rebellion of my mind

Cells on my left eyelid
multiply fast in an unmatched race
against the right, laying in tiny folds

along the crease, I cannot
blink them out or tuck them in
they will not let me lie about

my time on earth
There are scars on my knees
fading slow, sinking into the white

clarity of neighboring skin
They are forcing me to forget you—
to forget what—to forget where I last

held proof of it
Maybe it’s time to allow age
to love wisdom more than sorrow

My skin has shed entirely ten times
and again since the last time
your breath knew it

First published in East Jasmine Review, also included in All the Tiny Anchors.

2010s · Poetry · The Unnamed Algorithm

Not Sleeping

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment 
I can't keep
not sleeping at night
I can't keep
letting all those
        open cupboard doors
pull my shoulder blades
I can't keep
hoping for that miracle
        change black tea
        into coffee and cream
I can't keep 
recycling those words
        said and unsaid
replies and responses
never meet resolution
I can't keep
my head full of bees
whispering why
        it doesn't matter
        it never matters
I can't keep
eating the edges of my cuticles
it won't grow flat
I can't keep
my ear to my gut
it's holding on to a secret
        I'm listening
        it's not telling
I can't keep
waiting by the phone
waiting for that email
        to make it right
it will never be right
I can't keep
saying I don't mind
I get it-I understand
        I don't
I can't keep
not surrendering to anything
since the switch flipped
        it got broke
        I can't switch it back
I can't keep
a single person as ideal
as I have loved them
        stop idealizing
I can't keep
all the names off my lips
they push out daily
        hourly I form them
        my mouth aches
I can't keep
this pencil moving
        its eraser is shrinking
there's more mistakes to make
I can't keep
presuming the road's closed
my feet are swelling
        until it hurts to walk
        but I walk anyway
I can't keep
listening to the air in my lungs
rub against my nostrils
        I hear myself living
        I need to be sleeping
 
4-16-13
First Published in Something’s Brewing, Kind of a Hurricane Press (April 2014)
2014 · Publications

Silver Birch Press Self Portrait Series

Sarah ThursdayLeave a comment
Photo by Karlee Tittle Cuff
Photo by Karlee Tittle Cuff

“Love Letter No. 1: To My Pit-Bull Self” is now on Silver Birch Press’s webpage featuring self portrait poems throughout the month of August. I am so excited to be included with tons of other poets I admire, like Daniel McGinn, Danielle Mitchell, Jax NTP, and Denise Weuve, during my birthday month no less! You can also listen to the poem on Soundcloud.com/SarahThursday.