Introspective retrospective
inescapable dreamscape
makes your scars twitch with
discombobulated self loathing.
Memories stained with
fear mongering
innermost thoughts
and knifepoimt teardrops.
Insomniac, somnambulist,
can’t tell the difference,
doesn’t want to fall
because sometimes
all the time
the rabbit-hole leads
to reality.
© Emilie C. Black, 2020
A sadness runs through him
Like the coldest river
Like the bluest river
Crashing and coursing through
Dams of debris
Dammed and dashed against
Banks and rocks of
Psyche and skin.
Coursing through veins
To the pools of his open palms
And drips from his fingertips.
A sadness runs through him
Like oil through saltwater
Slowly spreading and sticking
And clotting and clinging
To his body and soul.
A sadness runs through him
Like wild cats through
The limbs of the trees of his veins
Silent and swift but
He still feels the pain
Of their claws sinking In to his skin
© Emilie C. Black, 2020
You had to leave. Not because you wanted to, but because they wanted you to. Because they wanted to be safe and happy and that couldn’t happen if you were vaguely gay. You knew they were wrong but the truth would take too long to explain and the pain would only get worse if you tried.
So you packed up the person they wanted you to be and moved out of their house, carrying the baggage around like a blanket that kept you cold at night while you traveled from door to door, sleeping on sofas and floors, wrapped in clothes that weren’t yours anymore but at least they fit.
Maybe if you wore them long enough, playing a part that could please them would be possible. Maybe the Sharpie ink scars they tattooed on your skin and your soul would sink in and make you acceptable, at least to them if not yourself. Maybe you could live with that. For a while.
Flannel shirts don’t discriminate. They hang and wrap around you, multicoloured like the flags you want to wear like a cape and fly and be free in. Soft sleeves mop up the tears and blood you shed as you try to cut and carve your way to the person you want to be.
Your friends complain you don’t dress up for Halloween but you don’t know how to explain that you’re wearing a costume every damn day. You’ve painted a smile on your face but looking at your eyes in the mirror reminds you how fake it is.
You roll up your sleeves and you look like the person you’ve always pretended to be and hate yourself. You heard people say your name and hate yourself. You get called sir by the waiter and hate yourself. You lie in the hospital bed, think about everything you’ve been and had bto be and hate yourself.
So you wrap yourself in your flannel. You feel the soft press against your skin, watch the coloured lines contour and curve around your arms and want to be like that. Curved and carved into that coke-bottle glass frame. You want your chest to be heavy from love and happiness instead of negativity.
So you shave off the physical and metaphorical beards that kept you safe, secure and in sadness. You grow your hair out and raise your voice in volume and pitch. It’s taken four years, but you’ve finally left those boxes of boy clothes by the side of the road and in thrift stores for the people who need them.
You keep the flannel shirts. Not to remind you of who you were, but to wear them as multicoloured flags, proud and open on your new chest, with all the queer t-shirts you need emblazoned with the logos of who you really are. They wrap around your wrists and arms like warm hugs from an old friend that doesn’t care about the old you, just the new.
© Emilie C. Black, 2020
(Today’s poem is a surprise sequel to my magnum opus (ha!) “Dear Ms Pacman“)
I never gave you enough credit.
I poured my soul out on Reddit
I always thought it,
But I never said it:
Dear Ms Pacman, I love you.
And I’m sorry.
In the near perfect pie chart of our love
There was always a piece missing;
A missing slice, an open wound;
A hole that you could never fill,
So I became addicted to fruit and pills.
I began to chase ghosts
And run from the past
So I guess, overall, I was kind of an ass.
Dear Ms Pacman, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for ghosting you,
I treated you like you were a game,
You were supposed to be cherished
But instead I won you then threw you away,
Like something I could come back to i
If I had the time,
But now you’ve left and
There’s no changing your mind.
Dear Ms Pacman, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for treating love
Like something you can get a high score in.
You deserved so much more than me
But I wouldn’t set you free because
I was determined I could make you happy
And kept you beside me,
Tied in an emotional Gordian knot
Until you cut yourself free.
.
Dear Ms Pacman,
I’m sorry.
@ Emilie C.Black, 2020
It was a day.
Nothing big,
Nothing lost,
Nothing major,
Nothing special.
Just another day;
The sun shone,
The earth moved,
Just another day.
It was a day.
Nothing was special.
No superfluous similes.
No grandiose spectacle.
No dextrous metaphors.
Just passive verse in a passive tense
© Emilie C. Black, Apr 2020
I wish I could say
I would take the time to
Do something sensible, like
Resit that maths exam
Or ask you out or
Wish for peace,
But the gravity and
The bitter reality
Is this:
I would stop trying,
I would stop learning,
I would stop being me.
I would become bored,
I would become complacent,
I would become a failure to myself.
I would probably become depressed,
I would probably stop caring,
I would probably kill myself.
Question from Michael Clark from Facebook
I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Were you expecting me to say
Something more fitting,
More form fitting,
Something more pretty?
Or would you rather I said
I was wearing a shirt and tie so
You can fetishize my school uniform
To try and justify his actions
And make the victim him and not me?
Were you hoping I would say
I was wearing nothing but
My sexuality on my sleeve
And leggings so you could say
“They were practically begging”
And then pin the blame on me?
Then go on to say that I was
“Preying on his fragile masculinity”
Twisting the situation and implying
That the problem was me?
Because the truth is
I wasn’t wearing anything that would
Let you dress consent as a foregone privilege
Instead of a basic right.
And the only reason his
Arms and ego are bruised is because
I tried to fight back and tried not to
Not let it happen but I was
Too frightened and pinned down
With brute force and fear.
I still feel his hand
Over my mouth,
Forcing my screams
To back down my throat.
I am forced to wear scars
Carved by his nails and I’m
Stained with bruises that
No shower can wash away and
No knife or razor can cut out.
And I’ve tried.
No noose or antidepressant
Can change the way that
I have been changed.
And if you think,
If you believe,
That I would ask for this,
For my life to be hollowed out,
For my body to be mutilated to the point
I don’t recognise my reflection,
Then you are just as much to blame as him.
I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt,
Now they’re stained, tattered and torn
And strewn amongst the shreds of
My dignity and innocence and
Shards of shattered dreams that
Have given way to nightmares that
Don’t let me sleep
And broken-record memories
That play over and over and over,
That remind me the victim was me.
I have a threesome every day
And I’ve been having threesomes
Every day for what seems like
My entire life.
I don’t expect you to know
What that feels like but
Let me tell you,
It’s exhausting.
It’s a constant barrage of
Twisting and tossing and turning
And pushing and pulling
And burning and biting
And clawing and cutting
In a never-ending search
For happiness.
A happiness that never comes,
Much like myself because
I am too generous,
I am on the receiving end of
Two toxic partners working
In discord and out of rhythm and harmony
To give me the best worst fucking
Of my life.
Partner A:
Definitely built for speed and not comfort
And when I say speed,
I don’t just mean in terms of firing rate.
I mean the drug, because
He lives at a million miles an hour,
Never slowing, taking me by the hand,
Taking me to the brink,
Taking me on a rollercoaster ride
Where there’s no safety bars,
Where there’s no speed limit,
Where there’s no means of self-preservation,
Only self-destruction and sado-masochism
Partner B:
They like to take it slow,
Painstakingly, mind numbingly slow.
And it’s not so much sensual
As it is sensory, with a blend of
Substance and pain,
Blood play and asphyxiation,
Everything is a threat and a challenge,
Like waking up or doing literally
Anything because she leaves a mark on me
Brandings of bites and bruises
And cuts and cigarette burns.
Like I’m her property.
My bedroom is a BDSM dungeon,
A Bipolar Disorder and Sadomasochism Dungeon,
Where I’m locked in my bed and my head
With two lovers who love to fuck me
At every given opportunity.
And it would be fine to
Take them one at a time,
Treat each of them with the right
Time, dedication and medication
But unfortunately, I often find
I’m locked in a situation where
They’re both fucking me at the same time,
Tearing my body and mind apart
With thoughts that cut like a knife
And fingernails that run
Over and under my skin.
I have a threesome every day
And I’ve been having threesomes
Every day for what seems like
My entire life.
I don’t expect you to know
What that feels like but
Let me tell you,
It’s exhausting.
Question from Michael Clark from Facebook
I know it seems hard to believe
That I wear my heart and soul on my sleeve
And my vocal chords and
Stand up in front of my fellow humans
And regale them with poetic tales
And awful rhymes about
My time on this earth.
Because I don’t fill the traditional mould,
I’m not young enough to be fresh on the scene
And I’m not old enough to be established
And I’m not clean shaven enough
Or too beardy to seem as wordy
As I try to be.
And I don’t have a degree in English
From a top university like Edinburgh or Cambridge,
I went to a uni out of sight and mind
And studied sound and lighting design
So I understand the quiet rage
That some people have when I step on the stage because
I spent years trying to hide from it.
And I don’t have a beret
Or skinny fit jeans
Or a memory strong enough
To remember my own poems and
It feels like I’m in a dream because
After this I have to go back to the
Corporate machine and
I don’t have books of Wordsworth or
Shakespeare and I don’t write every day and
It gives me the fear that I’m a fraud and
All of this will disappear like
Chalk on a pavement or rational thoughts into a beer so
I’ll take this neuroticism and use it to
Justify all my actions and make this seem real, so
Yes I am a poet because
I’ve got crippling depression and
And a a tormented childhood
And a mental state that barely exists
And I’m not afraid to show it and
That makes me a troubled artist.
So yes, I am a poet.
But I’m not sure I know it yet.
Question comes from a work colleague who didn’t realise what I do as a sideline.
You’d think after all this time
That things would change and
I wouldn’t feel the same.
It’s a shame that I couldn’t
Be like you or be liked by you
Or convince you to stay.
But much like the champagne
On our wedding day,
Our love fell flat and lost it’s fizz
As quickly as you lost interest.
Now all I do is invest my time
Looking at these photographs
Of a different life
As I wonder if everything
From the kisses and the smiles
Was just a lie.
I never saw you cry.
It was as though there was no
River of tears behind your eyes,
Just frozen lakes on frozen nights
And frozen in time, fixating
On never changing, fixating
On stopping, fixating on silence,
Building it like a fence to keep us apart
Because it was easier to feel nothing
Than to feel pain.
I wish I could feel the same
But there’s a fire in my heart and brain
That stops me from being as cold as you are.
And no matter how hard I try,
I cannot will my heart to stop,
Despite the torment and the
Blame game you played,
Playing me into taking the blame
For us drifting apart like
Falling stars from the night sky,
Falling into nothing and silence
And out of existence,
Despite your insistence and
The hurt and distance that
Lies between us,
Despite all of this,
Darling, yes.
I love you, still.
Mxcellany - Poetry, Music, Art 