TheCourtRose

I am lily white, ivory bound Skin the same hue as bones and teeth Casper, whispering and floating, thick-coated snow bunny insulated from the ice Even my silence is vanilla flavored Fingers made of asphalt chalk for outlines of black bodies on back roads and writing on blackboards for white-washed history My lily-liver wants to flock away in a white flight from besieged cities Write from afar with a safety pin in one hand and a latte in the other Atop a crystalline, snow-peaked mountain, an apologetic "color blind" apex predator Gaining purchase on top of black backs, brown arms Looking away from the skin beneath my boot because I have the privilege to do so Vomit in my mouth Aware of my own shame and knowing full well my discomfort is only that... un-comfortable My body is not in danger My involvement is selective and "appropriate" When I tire, back behind those lacy curtains I go My creamy bubble popped when the blood on my hands s...

There is a nook between your shoulder and neck that I forgot about until you hugged me After we sat on our old bench and you said again, "I'm sorry for hurting you" during that last hateful week between us I believed the apology this time Let it hit home, mostly because I love you more than I'm angry now If my heart was the fragile kind, instead of the prickly hedgehog variety made of gristle and spines, it would have shattered like a teacup on pavement It's hard to apologize to the spindles of a cactus Moving and breathing aches so much more because I am less angry and more in love Life was simplified when I hated you Easier when I forgot all about that damn nook in the crook of your neck and shoulder, where I can breathe you in and it smells like everything we were, and everything we were supposed to be

Would that I could build an altar to this pain because you see- this is the only way I have now to quantify how I loved you I cannot express in caresses, or kisses, or shared meals and secret jokes To set this mourning free is the only sane recourse Swallowing and choking disillusionment, like bile, serves no one It is, in fact, a true disservice to how much we were An altar could not contain the whole story, nor could it atone for the pages left blank, but it would be a monument to read quietly again and again nonetheless Yet altars are static, unrelenting and we are nimble creatures Understanding that pains recedes is not the same as believing it, though

I am no longer someone's something and I have always been someone's something Mostly in the evening, when silence fills this new home, I am frenzied Craving to fill my head, my bed, my heart, my body with anything other than this acute, pus-ridden, rattled emptiness I do not recognize this panicked creature, clawing the walls of the universe in withdrawal, desperate for distraction I want to scream, "But who am I now?" which smacks of histrionics and annoyance even to my ears Cannot articulate that this is so much more than hollow Hollow implies a nature-born intention Trees have hollows This, this is man-made, gut-wrenched, melon-balled, wires ripped unceremoniously from the innards of a broken toy I could pace the floors of this home nightly with no one the wiser No yellow wallpaper holding in the crazy No witnesses if pacing turned to crawling Perhaps, there's the crux More than not being someone's something is that...

Heart shuddering sidewise Scrambling backwards like a crab The culmination of change upon change settles, a murky cloak Surroundings miraged Hunker down in its shell, pulling limbs in close Waiting out the pain in duration Eventually, always, the shuddering stops

Her shirt looks small It's already in the closet, on the side that used to be mine Something I'll never be- small I take up space with voice and hips and words and expectations I could swallow the world whole, and plan to It bothers me, though, that she's smaller than me Skinny, young, the type of sliver I always longed to be Impressionable enough to believe whatever you promised in the throes of your pain This is the bridge you've chosen to ford the pass I can't judge you for it much, except that you paraded her in front of me Which makes you small Smaller than I'll ever be and smaller than I've ever been Right now, I am grateful for my own multitudes

Clumsy, cantankerous tome Bowing the table before me The weight of life gracing each page and oh... it is ponderous indeed Chapters for each love affair All shorter (or longer) in duration than intrinsically necessary considering the amount of spine occupied Snippets and tidbits in margins and dog-eared corners Compliments and enticement (so noted) Criticisms and excrement (absorbed or ignored depending) Each swallowed with grains of sea salt or spoonfuls of granulated sugar The foundation of childhood is the first quarter of the book, at least The reparation of said childhood is double that again in length (with footnotes on various therapeutic practises in the index) Yet, where is the pride? The lightning-born words? Where are the odes to the battle? Where are the frantic journal entries? Hopefully not undersized compared to the Editor's arrangement of fate and chance, nor lacking in vulnerable illustrations and doodles Large and ...

The door creaks close behind me, I can feel the wood drawing near Space to step back shrinks for every hesitant step that toes its way forward The doorway is different this time I can smell it Air as unfamiliar as the choices being made Were a mirror before me only inches past the precipice, a stranger would stare back, unrecognizable They are wrong They are always wrong This is no two-pronged wooded fork in a golden wood This is a solstice choice A decision birthed as the sun disappeared and darkness descended with crooked, insisted incisors in its smile A faith-bound step, taken when the road was already rough Made at the hinges of midnight with only whispers lighting the way to that God-forsaken door The door closes and every instinct screams to return to light and arms and familiarity and love, holding all the teeth at bay Before, I always turned back The stranger in front of me, the one on the other side, ...