reinventing-wednesday

[reinventing-wednesday]

I got my hair done yesterday. All the gray is gone, hidden under dye and bleach. I spent 4 hours in a chair, bullshitting about different things and watching part of Goodfellas and The Departed (both are excellent movies, btw. Goodfellas is one of my all-time favorites.) After my appointment, I took this picture, and although I can definitely see that I've aged sonce i first started using tumblr, I'm grateful for it. There was a time when I couldn't think of living past a certain number of years or that I should just end it and be done, but I made it past those thoughts. Eventually, I'll stop coloring my hair, and maybe I'll ease into old age gracefully, or maybe I won't. Either way, I plan on sticking around for as long as I can.

[reinventing-wednesday]

I want to ask

what moves you,

but you’re all teeth,

and hunger,

and pain.

[reinventing-wednesday]

Love is Not for the Birds

when you’ve worn

yourself out

with the circling,

and the swatting,

and the pouncing

__

you’ll put me

with the other

pretty

dead things

decaying in the sunshine

beneath your bedroom

window

__

the absence of song

my quiet

grief.

____________

One from my book “Smut” published in 2015.

[reinventing-wednesday]

what was once felt in my presence,

will be marked by my absence.

I’ll be there, abandoned–

in between every collapse of shutter,

inside the spaces of every poem

you write.

[reinventing-wednesday]

the sky is the color of the bruise you got the last time you set your heart down.

we think in starts and stops. promises disappearing from the horizon, burned off by the sun.

how long can you travel? thoughts of turning back. picking another direction to replace the lines you’ve drawn.

you try to return to the spot where it began. only to give up half way, pack your bags for the sight of window dressings, stale air, and unseen rooms.

anywhere is better. a quick exit is the easiest answer when you’ve shut off the lights, and you can no longer feel the hands that once held your own. and I’m not disagreeing with the ways you’ve been let down.

signs whip past. the wind catches your hair. its fingers cooling the fever on your brow. and you think, maybe, this time will be different. maybe, this time I’ll rest.

you realize you’re in the wrong lane. knuckles pale from gripping all that has been lost. the engine screams, scenery slipping past the window, while your stomach sinks.

you fear it’s too late.

and what if you’re right?

[reinventing-wednesday]

Cosmetic Effect

you remind me of the time I stole my mother’s lipstick to make myself feel pretty.

[reinventing-wednesday]

[reinventing-wednesday]

"Leave the Heart In" - 19" x 10", acrylic on stretched canvas.

[reinventing-wednesday]

I asked my mother why she taught herself to be quiet. The drop of cadence in her voice, giving way to someone else's gravity.

She said men talk more often when they feel trapped, they're softer and bark less when they don't.

Something about the echo, she said, makes them afraid of their own timber. Their booming folding into whispers, but don't mistake that for understanding, she warned.

I told her, love should never be a trauma response. She sighed, went back to stirring the pot.

She asked if I was getting enough iron, enough sleep. I told her I was once transparent, but now, I've become a tangle of arteries and veins you can no longer see through. My heart is tough, I said, it hardly hurts at all anymore.

I couldn't tell her about the insomnia. She wouldn't be proud.

I asked if she had ever witnessed a miracle.

She said, love should never be a trauma response.

And I said, I don't think it is this time.

-Sarah Shockey 2020

[reinventing-wednesday]

Inspiration drawn from the poem "Hope" is the thing with feathers, by Emily Dickinson.

You can read it here.

[reinventing-wednesday]

I’m not prey.

I howl back.

[reinventing-wednesday]

[reinventing-wednesday]

[reinventing-wednesday]

I've been debating whether or not to post this. I don't want it to come off as judgemental or self-righteous. I wanted an outlet for my observations and feelings about them. Not that I have to explain that, most poets write for that very same reason. After thinking it over, I think those who take offense to this are the ones who need to hear it and think about it. As tired as I am of reading cruel and hateful comments, I'm more tired of making myself small so that someone else can be comfortable.

[reinventing-wednesday]

[reinventing-wednesday]

[reinventing-wednesday]

to clutch

the horrors of

a haunted love