I walk these cobbled closes
And pathways paved with memories
That wear down with every step,
Pacing day after day,
Trying to remember and forget
The stories that haunt these streets.
I curse the ground beneath my feet
I curse the will that keeps me walking
Through constant pain.
I struggle to hear myself talking
And curse the rain and its echoes
That sound like mocking applause.
I think back to everyone I’ve lost
And finally accept
I’m not cut out to be a tour guide.
© 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
Gnasty Gnorc
Gnashes on gnocchi,
Gnaws on gnats
While the Wildebeest
With gnarled horns
Listens to gnu-metal,
The Gnome
Was gnowhere.
© 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
This doesn’t have
A lot of metaphor, or simile,
Or writing techniques, or style,
Or rhyming structure, or metre;
To be honest it’s barely a poem,
and that’s fine because I’m barely
a poet.
To be honest, I’m a mess.
Mental health in decline,
Pretending to be fine,
Being confined,
Just reclined
On this sofa.
Where the cushions, the blanket, the duvet, the laundry, and emotions accumulate and
lie across my chest like a
heavy
warm
comfortable
something.
© Emilie C. Black, Apr 2020
It’s day three, I’m a day behind, it’s late, I’m tired, poetry is hard.
4am hurts like
blunted knives in your ribcage
cold fire in your veins
and crushed glass in your skin.
4am hurts like your ex.
Your heart and body aches
for reasons you don’t understand,
curled around yourself and convulsing
cursing and breath,
Fists closed, arms crossed, jaw clenched
to protest and protect;
Every breath, every moment
feeling like hard time and hard labour.
Dull pain and panic burrow and settle
and scuttle and gnaw
like unwanted mice nestling
in your chest
Your body and soul is a punch bag
propped up against a worn out mattress
left out in the rain
ready for landfill.
© Emilie C. Black, 2020
Mxcellany - Poetry, Music, Art 