i was born starving.
i shed my skin like a laundered swamp spirit--
i'm naked now, so kiss me,
fuck me,
make me feel like i'm worth something for a minute.
hold me, i'm a sentient plastic bag blowing on a branch.
i make a lot of noise,
but it isn't music,
no more than screaming is singing.
see the sun.
it mocks me,
it spins across the sky out of reach,
teasing.
little things rise green out of the dirt,
snow around their necks;
the pretty rising dead, out to visit themselves upon the spring--
they stab their way into being.
they pretend to recognize the air, when all they know is suffocation.
i am the daughter of a bone,
willing to do anything just to feel wanted.
otherwise,
i will crack the moon and call it my covering,
ill-white,
pulling but never having,
glowing but stone dead and more bitter than any man could ever understand.
______
for real toads mini challenge, april come she will.
Raw, sensitive wounds given a voice. Visceral, and cutting. This was a great piece!
ReplyDeleteWhoa, I don't think I'm old enough to read this, Shay.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I did, and you are SOME kinda writer, my dear, some kinda amazing writer.
K
Whoa. The last three lines are as good as anything ever written. This isn't one I'm going to wax verbose on--it's too good for that. A fine, clean surgical knife to the heart, Shay.
ReplyDeleteThis is raw poetry..packs a verbal knife...Great work!! I bought Night Blooms. :)
ReplyDeleteHold me, tucked away in this poem of passionate venting really struck me. Sometimes those that want just to be loved, protest the loudest?
ReplyDeleteill white,
ReplyDeletepulling but never having
this was bone chilling, a silent scream
raw, intense, truth baring
ReplyDeleteWe enter into our primordial being
Gracias
little things rise green out of the dirt,
ReplyDeletesnow around their necks;
the pretty rising dead, out to visit themselves upon the spring--
they stab their way into being.
they pretend to recognize the air, when all they know is suffocation.
To me, this stanza alone achieves all that Eliot's opening lines of Waste Land set out to do, but with the addition of a real sense of flesh and bone mortality assigned to the plants.
Fine, fine work!
I love every stanza of this poem, Shay.
ReplyDeleteWowzers, whatever will you do for an encore? Seriously, this is a fantastic write....."born starving"....."pulling but never having"......."daughter of a bone". As Joy said, cuts like a knife.
ReplyDeleteThis is stunning, and although I seem to say that about your poetry a lot, I agree with Hedge that those last three lines are stunning!
ReplyDeleteIt will be difficult to think of April in any other way after reading this.
ReplyDeleteApril, she has come.
To me, "I'm a daughter of a bone" means that her conception was only about sex. She feels worthless because she wasn't truly wanted, as far as she knows. So she's left trying to find herself reflected in another man's face because she wasn't loved by her father---as if being loved physically might make her real, might make her feel worth something for a moment.
ReplyDeleteHer very existence is a defiance of the rising sun. She was never meant to be at all---in her own eyes, anyway.
These are very powerful sections; definitely my favorites:
"the pretty rising dead, out to visit themselves upon the spring--
they stab their way into being.
they pretend to recognize the air, when all they know is suffocation"
"ill-white,
pulling but never having,
glowing but stone dead and more bitter than any man could ever understand"
'i am the daughter of a bone' is so chilling, so perfect.
ReplyDelete'hold me, i'm a sentient plastic bag blowing on a branch.
i make a lot of noise,
but it isn't music,
no more than screaming is singing.' Wow, what an amazing metaphor that is.
And those final two stanzas are just breathtaking.
Damn, girl. This is raw, primal rage brilliantly conveyed.
ReplyDelete