sophoscene

here to share my poetry and stories :)

[two-bees-poetry]

the grief of growing

[sophoscene]

The rain rinses through my backyard,

And as I watch each droplet break

I wish she loved herself enough to love me.

God’s tears heal His creation,

But my mother’s tides of sorrow

Only break me into sand,

Soulless and abrasive.

[sophoscene]

I will watch you like a sunset

And your hues will stain my face

And your warmth will burn my eyelids

As you fade without a trace.

I will watch you like a sunset

With a smile and a tear

For I can sit with you through moonrise

and tomorrow, disappear.

[yakultstan]

[sophoscene]

you had love she didn't want-

and I know how hard it is to hold

and fight a fire down within you

while you lie awake, alone and cold.

so I gave you a shoulder to cry on

and I helped you shoulder the weight

as I crumpled beneath what wasn't mine

while I gave you the words to create.

[sophoscene]

Shame kills all that is worth living for. Why try, if every failure is a cardinal sin? I refuse to become my mother, and let guilt coat me like plaque until my own character is obscured and forgotten. I have so much good to do with my hands, and so many words to speak that are caught in my throat by the fear of even letting a spectre of the girl I was for my whole life shimmer through. I am so many people, and none of them are me, and I am done with everything that isn’t trying to find her.

[sophoscene]

You and I

Watch the night seep through the sky,

And though your face is turned away from mine,

Caught in the light of the meteor’s shine,

I know that you see me.

You whisper something soft again

And my fingers are caught on my paper and pen

But if I could hack up all the words that itch my throat

And fill the page with ink enough to float,

I wouldn’t have anything to stay here for.

So perhaps it is good and kind

That you can meet my gaze and cast away my mind

And graze your hand along my side

Forgetting the secrets that I dared to confide 

Without my having to ask you. 

[piercetheeviexo]

there’s a

dead girl in my kitchen.

and nobody is scared -

my mother studies her

my sister rolls her eyes

as if she’s interesting and boring

all at the same time, like a long lecture

she drones, whispers to herself

we’re not yet sure why.

and no, there’s no signs.

no, she hasn’t cried.

yes, i’ve tried that. no - they declined.

and she hears them, through the walls

she opens her mouth and nothing comes out

and she loathes brains, she does.

she’s not like the other zombies, those girls are all sludge.

see how she continues?

i told you, she drones on.

how annoying. how odd.

[sophoscene]

I am going to create a life that I will not have to escape from. That’s it. That’s the secret. I know myself well enough to realize that I’ll escape things that hurt me or other people, and I’ll chew off my tail to do it. I will spend these next years, if not the rest of my life, building something worth staying for. It all begins now. I died when I realized that I would never be free like this, and I’m being reborn as I write. Because I don’t have to live for them. I don’t have to live for anything but myself. I trust my intuition enough to follow it, because I know it is led by my conscience and ever-consuming shame. I am not a bad person, so I need to stop acting like I’m one wrong move from being one. No matter the beliefs or opinions of anyone else. I have always been an artist, and I am now faced with the greatest project of my life: the most mediums, the most paths and ideas and seeds left to sprout, but the same narrow constrictions and deadly consequences that breed raw creativity. I have a personhood to build. And when I am done, I will have forgotten what it is like to dream of a one-way train ticket.

[sophoscene]

One day, the ticket will be one-way.

The train won’t be a brief reprise.

I won’t have to act like someone else.

I’ll forget them.

One day, my hands will be covered in blood and paint.

And they’ll touch the world without taking.

It sits thick with color that you cannot see my skin,

And there was never a reason to.

I was not put here to be seen.

One day, I’ll give up perfection.

I will hang it up on the shelf next to the golds and silvers of my worth.

And they’ll collect dust in a box

in the closet that used to be mine

at my parent’s house.

I don’t live there anymore.

One day, the sun will bleed pink and yellow over the horizon, and all I will be is a person.

No greatness.

No weakness.

No ticket back to my town.

One day, there will be no memories left to forget.

[sophoscene]

The ocean pushes each grain of sand.

I remind myself that it’s not because it wants to.

The moon also calls it,

In the very same way 

that it is mocked by the sun.

It is hard to remember this as you call me down for dinner.

You remind me that no one made me take that class,

The one where I learned how the planet’s mantle is caught in a war with itself.

No wonder I love the Earth so much.

I know, now, that the waves that gently lap up the shore 

will carve out the lands in a millennium 

that none of us will see.

I figure that even if I die here,

My bones will still make it back to the mountains. 

I’m stubborn, and you’ve never let me forget it.

But you’re the one who demands beach photos and sunny smiles

Even though our footprints melt back into the sand minutes after we leave.

I bite my tongue.

Someone drowned yesterday.

It’s a reminder to be careful,

A lesson in floating in the waves instead of fighting them.

That’s all it is, apparently.

I let the water climb up to my scalp the next day.

The salt stings my nostrils.

nothing notices.

[sophoscene]

I watch your precious flock toil and tire,

At the feet of your church I stand silent and plain,

As you proclaim the sorry fate of the denier-

Bathed in righteous flutters of that all-forgiving flame.

What fire? Who has made themselves in fire?

How else would you have cast yourself in gold?

What souls have fed your insatiable pire,

As your precious wooden cross begins to mold?

Do you know the blood you have spilled at your altar

Desecrates His eternal light

Far more than the chance of faith to falter

In the hearts of families left shattered in the night?

What greater idolatry than the worship of yourself?

Do you care for the girl too soon made a mother

As much as you care for that book on your shelf?

Or, with fewer words, is she too “other”

To deserve forgiveness instead of her pain?

Her misery is justice, 

But her soul is mundane.

You know very well the kind of seeds you have sown.

I make myself in His image

You craft Him as your own.

So tell me who the heathen is

From atop your gilded throne.

[sophoscene]

I run ripe through your fingers,

Scarlet and simple and thin.

Cursed with the gift of creation.

A figure marked with sin.

Did I ask for it within me?

Did I pray when tucked in tight,

For your soul to break my fingers

And erase me in the night?

I can’t even stoke my own-

You know I can’t contain a fire,

I can barely hold my breath

As you proclaim that I’m a liar.

But use your voice to burn my insides,

You still know who exists within.

Who said you had the right to mourn

The life that lives beneath my skin?

You dared to take my life,

So I won’t let you keep your own.

I’ll set fire to our stories

Just to make sure mine is known.

[sophoscene]

being a girl is realizing what your father did to your mother.

becoming a woman is realizing you let the same thing happen to you.

[sophoscene]

You say that I’m blessed to live in this country

But there’s blood on my hands and I can’t wash it off.

You say that some people will always be hungry,

And you watch from above as we gorge at your trough.

The people are lost and deprived of connection

So fill up their senses, leave no room for thought

Give them trifles and toys to hold their attention

And watch their passion and morality rot.

So there’s your solution; let them lounge in their ease.

But the engine is burning at an unforeseen rate.

Those who wake up form a nasty disease,

And people sedated build a healthy, strong state. 

So you mine up the world to drown others with lead

And you fracture the nations, for the paper needs ink

And you feel no remorse for the humans left dead

So long as there’s blood on the table to drink.

We import the burdens and export our kindness,

Finding only when there’s no one left to save,

That the only cure for our grandiose blindness

Was long ago buried in our mother’s grave.

[sophoscene]

I’m sorry.

I spit it at the ground, because clearly saying it isn’t enough.

I’m sorry. 

I see the way you watch me watch you, and I pray you don’t mistake my pain for pity.

I’m sorry.

I don’t know if those words mean anything to you. Maybe you’ve heard them a million times. Maybe it’s the first. I hope they haven’t lost their meaning to you the way they have to me. But they keep on bubbling out of my throat, choking me, because I don’t have anything else to say except

I’m sorry.

If I could take your pain I would, you know I think it should

(I’m sorry)

Be me instead of you. All that you’ve been through,

(I’m sorry)

And I’ve got nothing to give back. The heart I’ve got, the words I lack, so now I sit with a broken stack

(I’m sorry)

Of pencils and tears and apologies

And I’ve still got nothing to say. My mother never taught me how to pray, but I’ll learn if it helps because

I’m sorry

That that happened and

I’m sorry 

That it stings.

I’m sorry

That the words land in your head like endless rings.

My mouth splits my troubles with phrases and my heart, when broken, sings. 

I’m sorry

That my words are all that I’ve got, and though I’ve written more than rot,

I’m sorry

That when your heart falls at my feet, stuck in mud and snow and sleet from trampled steps along the street,

All I have to say

Is that I'm sorry.

[sophoscene]

I look ahead at you 

And I do not hear His voice.

But has that ever mattered?

This path is now my choice.

Maybe He is not here now.

And maybe He never was,

But our lives are still worth living

If only just because.