I didn’t think fear
had a rosary, but
it pearls its dark prayers
across my skull leaving
grooves of cat scratch voices.
Insanity’s camera pours
its coffee-stained images
into my newspaper eyes
forcing me to read the
unseen as reality.
Pulled into the stinging inside out
I plead with the voices in my head
to not venture beyond my tongue,
to not build houses in my throat
of rotten words or toss baseballs
stitched with the foul thread of my delusions.
I’m a foreigner without a passport to normal,
a buzz kill’s humpty dumpty glued into broken,
workmen’s failed attempt to build on
rain puddle sand a chair that can hold
the weight of all the “me’s” that roam
the birdcage bus in my head
where everything enters, but nothing escapes.
©Susie Clevenger 2022
It's that time of year when October pulls me through dark ink.
Thank you Shay for your word list!
From the first line to the last, this is fierce, honest, compelling and amazing. This is Poetry, Susie.
ReplyDelete"Building houses in my throat"....wow Susie that is just one of some mighty amazing lines. This one is like Shay said fierce and honest and it captivates the reader right to the last line. I love it my friend!
ReplyDeleteAmazing piece, Susie. You have written from the inside out and it shows. The lines are just piercing in their truth and unsparing vision, especially lines like "..a buzz kill’s humpty dumpty glued into broken.." --and who has not prayed in those kind of times for their thoughts to not go beyond the tongue, "to not build houses in my throat." An excellent poem in every way.
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