Black and Blue

 

I am more than a dress,
a blues song you clothe me in
so your darkness won’t feel
as heavy as your tongue.
 
Where there’s bone there’s wings.
I can fly a sky of notes you can’t write
because freedom is a place in me
you can’t find.
 
Will and weather, cloud and feather,
what you think you hold isn’t even in your hands.
This black and blue bird is a sister of crows.
When the spirit says go, a murder will grow.
 

©Susie Clevenger 2022

The Sunday Muse #224

Escaping the Window

 

What offense your eyes hold when you look through me

to a window that mirrors only your reflection.

 

Anger shapeshifts through the sea of blue dreams that sail

my eyes where tomorrow is not our horizon.

 

Does love expire like moldy bread ignored on a shelf

or fade when sunlight turns bitter on your lips?

 

The coldness of detachment marches cigarette burns

through my mind as I fight demons dancing on scars.

 

I hate goodbyes, the breathless lingering hope feeds

that one more hour can rewind a broken clock.

 

I am enough…more than enough…Your blindness

is not my curse, not a sentence to serve because fear is my familiar.

©Susie Clevenger2021

The Sunday Muse #152

Not Every Cage Has Bars

 

Why look before you leap?

The fall may give you wings

to flee the glass they insist

you walk to pacify their bitter.

 

Wise is the one who trusts escape

is a better journey than pasting smiles

on a circle that never ends.

©Susie Clevenger 2021

The Sunday Muse #151

Roots

They chopped down a forest

to burn me from their throats,

but innocence argues escape.

Double trouble your world’s in rubble.

I only hid behind your teeth until

the flame spoke my name.

Today’s a dagger…Tomorrow a lock.

You drank white robed from a bigot’s cup

forgetting poison carries the stench of its roots.

©Susie Clevenger 2017

Friday 55 Halloween Edition