Semblance of A Blissful Life
Raindrops hang heavy in the belly
of darkening clouds. The world tilts,
leaves a gaping hole where the sun
stood amid plump vapors of the uncloaked
summer sky, now a fugitive hiding
from the impending eventide, a tight syllable
painting the delicacies of astral
beings, disconsolate within their tenuous tombs.
The symphony of crickets and frogs
does nothing to mend my weakness.
I sit, sleepless.
Knots of restless memories curl my
fists. My tongue struggles to push out thoughts
wrapped in despair, but, again, my
attempt to vomit the poisonous words fail. My hair
is snarled from hardened hands
braiding threadbare, splintered strands. My bones,
brittle from years of hollow
silence. My face gaunt, pallid, drawn, conceals horrors
I cannot unsee, unhear.
I sit behind a pinched smile and
false pride and complacency.
Mother insists I am a masquerade of
fragility, saturates my sorrows with morning
dew drops to cleanse away the
unease of her guilt. She has altered me into puzzle
pieces, worn thin with tattered
edges from flawed, fragmented ends forced together
to pull wide a smile —
mendacious, discordant — when she has company.
My longing for reprieve grows weary
in her desperate, pleading eyes.
I sit as night falls; a crow
lingers on the tree branch outside my bedroom window, utters
a harsh cry as my eyes settle on
him. He caws at me, berates me for my façade, my happy
charade, my quietude beneath the
nervous, fixed gaze of Mother, but I am breathless
from efforts to imitate a semblance
of a blissful life, incapable of speaking truth as she
sweeps away the residue to preserve
her perfect world, her smile feigning an existence
absent of cruelty, dismissing
misery like a broken twig on the path she keeps well manicured.
I sit to conceal the abhorrence
holding my taut grin in place, my thoughts in a straight
line, my anxiety tacked to the
walls in my throat.
Thunder cracks open the stillness
of night. Lightning spoils the gossamer energies
of days lost. Rain smacks the
window like beasts pounding their breasts, streak downward
like string instruments in an
orchestra, create shadows of the bars in a prison cell. The chaos
of the storm is where I find my
comfort, my stronghold against a lifetime of protecting
the enemy in combat. The black eyes
of the crow consider me before he retreats (with shrieks
of loathing) in search of shelter
and honest company.
J Snow
J Snow is a poet and author of psychological thrillers and
tales of terror. Her work has been described as disturbing, visceral, haunting,
and powerfully evocative. Snow primarily concentrates on short stories and
poetry and has been published by Hellbound Books, Horrified Press, Zombie
Pirate Publishing, Nothing Books, Anthology House, Sirens Call, The Horrorzine,
and several more but has recently shifted her focus to creating her own
literary journal, Blood Puddles, to help foster the growth of others in the
writing industry.
Tags:
Poetry