Blaze A. Reif Poetry

Original Poetry

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Ivy in June by IvyinJune

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Ivy in June: Knickknacks and Crafts by IvyinJune

You searched for: IvyinJune! Discover the unique items that IvyinJune creates. At Etsy, we pride ourselves on our global community of seller

I’m trying to get my fledgling Etsy off the ground a bit! Finally deciding to sell the candles I’ve been making as gifts for friends and family lol. Any share helps! Thank you!

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Ivy in June: Knickknacks and Crafts by IvyinJune

You searched for: IvyinJune! Discover the unique items that IvyinJune creates. At Etsy, we pride ourselves on our global community of seller

I’m trying to get my fledgling Etsy off the ground a bit! Finally deciding to sell the candles I’ve been making as gifts for friends and family lol. Any share helps! Thank you!

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I followed a stranger to South Street when I was eighteen with the hope that he would ruin me. I wasn’t a person back then. I went looking for a black hole and dove in when I found him. He helped me bleach my hair until it fell out in tumbleweeds. I laid my head on his shoulder, let myself get addicted to cigarettes during afternoons spent drinking with his friends in their dorm rooms. Left my fishnets on while we had sex and I would have done anything he asked, but I never loved him. At night, we’d pretend to be artists in a world that didn’t want us. Come morning, I never fell into his bed sober. Woke up bleeding and he was horrified. He was awake and he said he didn’t want me, but I already knew that. It was so easy to push my body into his hands so it wasn’t my responsibility anymore. Let him change the matter of me into something unrecognizable, whatever he wanted, that was fine. I knew what I was doing when I let him lead me home.

Black Hole

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The year I lived in the house by the railroad tracks, my brother and I rode our bikes top speed over a ramp in the back alley, and I honestly believed no one would ever catch me. My mother crafted her dream bedroom, sterile and Victorian with a four post canopy bed. I snapped a post off swinging from it and cut a three-inch gash just below my ribs. My brother had a roof below his window, the kind we’d crawl out of late at night with blankets and listen to the crickets chirp. Watch the trains pass. Somehow, we were left behind. There was a charcoal grill in the back yard where we’d incinerate twigs and leaves while our mother cautioned us against playing with fire. Most of the scars on my body were acquired there, but the scars in my mind came later. After the town went silent for the night, the three o’clock train rattled the old windows until the lead paint chipped off and I was sure the whole house would come down with us in it. When it finally did, my mother made dumpster diving for our childhood photographs the grandest treasure hunt of our lives. I was too young to notice the sheen of saltwater on her cheeks. In the end, we lost them all anyway. We lost it all anyway.

The House by the Railroad Tracks, (6/26/2020)

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I am writing the same words again— screaming, “RUN,” at the top of my lungs before I get in the car and drive to work. My body wants out— two bags packed and a heart that won’t look back. The coast is in my bones. Highways divide a map like veins in my skin. My circuitry is entirely live wire. I thought one day it would settle down, but it never did. Everything I love would fit in my car anyway. So, where is my redemption arc? When do I calm down in this story? I spent years begging to slow down, and somewhere along the line, routine became shackles. I still dream of Southwest sunsets and the sun rising over the Atlantic from the top of Cadillac Mountain. I still dream of a little yellow house set back against the tree line, two dogs, two kids, and the love of my life waiting for me. And my body still can’t cope with the in between.

Between (6/26/2020)