Ink and Tears

"I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right." -- The Book Thief

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I was not bred to lie in wait, to stalk my prey through the bushes and reeds. Like any good attack dog, I spring upon my victim and lunge for the throat. My sire would be proud.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Is it any surprise that, having been chained

to a post in the backyard, left to the mercy

of the elements, & struck by the hand that

starved me, I snarl and snap at anyone

foolish enough to try petting me?

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

These words of mine are dangerous--

I could lob them at a crowd of innocents

And watch as honey and muscle melt

Within the radius of my explosion.

I could thrust and maim and slice

Until my lead blade dulls with overuse.

I could shrink down to size every adult

Who ever made me feel microscopic.

I could make the planet burn if I wanted to--

And I so furiously, eagerly want to.

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I'm less scared of my earthly vessel emptying itself

Than I am of being trapped inside it like a djinn

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

The widowed and the orphan and the marginalized and the outcast

Should not have to wait outside the judge's empty house to receive their pardons

We can break into his office and steal his sealing wax and forge his signature

And grant ourselves

a b s o l u t i o n

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

My parents tore open my chrysallis prematurely, disrupting nature's rhythms before my new body settled.

Now they wonder why I have crumpled wings that will never lift my feeble body into the air and onto the next flower.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I am a halfling climbing a giant's staircase

And my bigger traveling companions forget

That their world is not made for me.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Having an auditory processing disorder

is like hearing your native tongue

spoken in an indiscernable accent

at least a quarter of the time.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Things my parents didn't notice:

That I always walked on my tip toes--

Not when my sister couldn't even crawl.

That I bounced my leg and twirled my hair--

Not when my sister kept flapping her hands.

That I never shut up about my obsessions--

Not when my sister barely spoke to us.

That I failed to understand social etiquette--

Not when my sister learned so little.

That I couldn't read moods or emotions--

Not when my sister was oblivious to it all.

That I felt anxious and stressed every day--

Not when my sister had raging meltdowns.

That my sister and I are not so different--

Just two blots on a multicolor spectrum.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

There can be no justice when your idea of restitution

Is to transform the oppressed into the oppresser

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Now that I know that I don't want a family

White picket fences look like barbed wire

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Dead little Christian girls are a menace upon this earth

Always looking down on you from memorial photo frames

With the kind of simpering smile that church folk adore

Dead little Christian girls can never disobey and never disappoint

Eternally petrified in their unachievable perfection

That of course the grownups will hold you up against

Dead little Christian girls are too precious to live in a fallen world

Which is why God has to take them away at such a young age

Or at least that's what their weeping moms say at the funeral

Dead little Christian girls linger like lost spirits who can't find heaven

Dogging your footsteps and burying into your subconscious

Until every body ache is an omen of your imminent demise

Because if God would strike an innocent girl with cancer

What torment will he inflict upon my wretched person?

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I drank a potion and shrunk myself

down to the size of a mouse

so I could scamper through the shadows

unseen, but my clumsy footsteps

still echo through the halls, as noisy

as a drunken giant in a trophy room.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I'm scared to learn more about my father's career in law enforcement

I worry that I am not the only child he's locked up in a cage

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

You cannot leave an infection of the heart alone and expect it to heal.

I had to dig my fingers into the wound and scrape out the diseased tissue

Until only a gaping hole remained. Only then could I stitch myself back together

And let time and distance perform their healing work.

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

I call myself an artist when I am only a pesky scavenger

Picking through the bones of the old wordsmiths

And fusing their fragments together into my own compositions.

Can I truly call myself a creator when all I do is steal?

-S

[writer-inthe-dark27]

Upon waking in the fiery furnace

I said to myself, "Now see here--

You are metal refined by fire

and you will emerge as gold."

It wasn't until my flesh blistered

and peeled away from my bones

that I learned He had tossed me in

and sealed the oven door shut.

-S