2020 – here's to falling apart and intentionally putting ourselves back together
Maybe when it drops down
We’ll make sense of it
Maybe not
If the sun drips sapphire
It might burn to the bone
Maybe simply warm
The ashes
Until they catch fire
If we drown in our riches
Perhaps the earth will sorrow
Or perhaps she’ll sigh
And drink down the blood
An offering to the carrion
To restore balance
Maybe when it falls down
We’ll make a foundation of it
Maybe not
If the bones keep dry
I’ll sleep inside the carcass
No one will breathe my way
By Daphne Shadows
There isn’t black black-enough to cross it out.
Sitting like a king on the horns of doubt.
Does anybody know what I’m talking about?
If I set fire to the moon, would you notice?
Could I sacrifice my pain to see truth, to know this?
Misery is the only home I’ve had but it’s one I wouldn’t miss.
It’s a little crazy, isn’t it?
Grinning to ensure you fit.
It burns, doesn’t it?
Almost like the world wants us to live. But it doesn’t.
Realizing I’ve walked in the skin of someone I wasn’t.
Until I became you to stay away from what I mustn’t.
Mustn’t, little miss.
Good girls and boys all know this.
Mustn’t be a mess
Pretend you have no stress
Got society to impress
They might ask you to undress
Must always answer yes
And speak a little less
Win this game of chess
Ignore your heart’s abscess
Yes – you can breathe, I guess
(Just not in excess)
Climb to my your success
Must make everyone obsess.
I tired your way, discovered something –
I don’t want this life and I’m fighting.
Everyone ready? You might need better lighting.
I’ll undress alright, unzip my skin,
Drop it on the floor and let the horror settle in.
Pull up a chair, take a seat, I’m about to begin.
I’m a mess, I confess, no doubt about that.
Can’t just pull mental health out of a hat.
And something’s making it worse, let’s talk about that…
You want who I am to be the mask you used to see,
But that’s just not me and I’d rather be free.
Instead, I’ve started stepping into me.
You’re angry but that’s okay, I expected the worst.
But this shabby glass bubble, I’m going to shoot, it’s going to burst.
I need some space. My soul needs to be nursed.
Sometimes all this compassion makes me feel cursed.
I’m drowning in pain ‘cuz I never put myself first.
I wish all these wasted years could be reimbursed.
When I speak up now, it has to be rehearsed.
Feeling so spineless? Let me tell you, it’s the worst.
Have to climb a mountain just to open my mouth.
Always afraid the situation’s going to go south.
Then there’s this other part of me that wants everything to burn.
‘Cuz maybe if they hurt too, they’ll have to learn.
With their pretty plastic melting, with nowhere to turn,
Maybe they’ll remember some respect, some human concern.
If I’m honest though, sometimes I just want them to hurt.
Yeah, I know, it’s childish. I’m trying to divert.
No, I won’t smile and no, I won’t revert.
I’m thinking it’s time to draw some lines and assert.
Let me just slide it down like lace,
I won’t force but you’ll embrace
Or I’ll leave, erase every trace.
I’m using my own two feet if I’m running this race.
You can’t have my voice or my face.
Won’t sell my soul, get off my case.
Think I’ll eat it? You’re off base.
Won’t take it for the crowd or sit like a lady,
Won’t wait politely in line for a bowl of misery.
Think you can stop me? Then you never knew me.
Sewing my own skin now and it’s Mizz not missy.
You want into my life? Show me!
Think I should go back to pretending? Try me.
Think I’m too messy? I’m so not sorry.
Think I’m too open? Don’t follow me.
Throwing husks into the fire so I can see inside myself.
Taking all these voices off the shelf.
Going to work. Shattered mind won’t fix itself.
Watch me stitch them together into one self.
Double sided, bipolar, multiple personality,
Jekyll and Hyde. Yes baby, that’s me.
Normal to be more than one thing, you hear me?
Not enough whiteout to cover me up now.
You could probably extinguish me, but I’m not sure how.
Kill me but changing me’s not something I’ll allow.
Killing butterflies and making dignity bow –
That’s not for me, I’ll stop you somehow.
Bottom line is, you won’t have any part of me, I disavow.
Silly shadow eater, you thought I was done?
I’ve got my ribs to crack open and wars to have won,
Barbed wire to come open, velvet to slide on,
I’ve got my boots to lace up, some hearts to shake, hon.
Walls to break until your fears come undone,
I’ve got heavy nights to bleed through to meet the sun.
Oops – that’s not what you meant by some edible fun?
My lipstick on your lungs, I’ve got a reckoning to run.
By Daphne Shadows
![IMG_0247[1]](https://daphneshadows.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/img_02471.jpg?w=663)
I’m breathing like a zombie, sitting on an empty fee. I think its pretty funny how you don’t see me. Certainly giving me all your advice for free. Sitting there shaking your heads, judging me. Basing all your hate on things you don’t see.
This will pass, you see. Gotta make it what you want it to be. That’s what they keep saying to me.
But I’m empty, scarecrow wondering who I want to be. Things holding me down, rocks in my pockets, underwater struggle to break out of the sea.
Yup, that was a cockroach crawling on my skin. Yes, living room lights dying, going dim. Can’t pay my bills and my patience is growing thin.
Work harder and smarter. Keep pushing farther and farther. Halfway through with a little baby starter. Everybody telling me to hold on longer.
Easy for you to say when food doesn’t hurt you. You want me to believe accepting your table scraps is a virtue. But I bet you can sleep and receive successes for your hard work, too.
Some of just hurt and hurt no matter how healthy we choose to be. We have to learn to trust in what we can’t see. Cuz our elbow grease and overtime leaves our energy stolen and our souls empty. Our experience shows we’ll never get to where we need to be.
Telling me I need to believe better. Telling me I must need to try harder. If I’m still not in my right mind, if I’m still falling behind, if I’m still running blind, I’ll never have anything to offer.
Fact of the matter is you don’t have to try that hard to get what you need. I used to run until my demons started to bleed. But my body decided I couldn’t even have that and I had to concede.
You brag about your bootstraps and all your achievements. While I’m out here fighting to get out of bed, my own mind, and bereavements.
I’m sinking but keep swimming. You’re throwing insults and demeaning. Some of us out here fighting fire in our skin, ducking and swinging.
Gotta run a marathon before we can step to our dreams. Cuz the giants are in our blood, pulling us apart at the seems.
We have to play doctor for ourselves. Pick up the pieces of our own egg shells. Take a gun to our personal Hells.
All of this before we get out of our beds. Because our hangman lives inside each our heads. All the while people advising us to start popping meds.
This is where you want us to break. Crying about how there’s only so much we can take. Don’t mind my creepy smile but this is where you made your mistake.
Didn’t you hear what I said? We’re out here working to silence the voices in our head. And that’s before we’re working on paying for our bread.
Yeah I’m gonna have days where I complain. Hello – no matter what I do, I’m in pain! But all this extra work isn’t in vain.
But listen up, pull out a chair, be a good kid and sit there. You don’t have to tell me, I already know life isn’t fair. But if we go a few rounds I’ll forever be there!
Oh yeah you’ll knock me down and I guarantee you’ll mess me up. But if there’s one thing we’re pretty good at, it’s getting back up.
You can fight me all day long but I’m a beast in the ring. You don’t understand the kind of pain my own issues can bring. But if you’ll notice, every day I’m the one winning. So if you think I’m weak or easy, you haven’t been listening. I’ll keep falling down but I’ll get back up and swing.
I’m breathing like a zombie, sitting on an empty fee. I think its pretty funny how you don’t see me. Certainly giving me all your advice for free. Sitting there shaking your heads, judging me. Basing all your hate on things you don’t see.
I think I’m going to mix it up and stay out of bed. Ignore all the ugliness swarming in my head. Do something different just like my heart said.
If I had to give advice, I’d say be careful what you’re fed.
by Daphne Shadows
And I sit there on the floor
Legs not crossed like a lady
But crossed like I’m four again
Sitting at school on the carpet
Waiting for the teacher to explain.
Okay, I’m ready.
For you to let down your wisdom
Breathe the secret into my ear
Pull back the curtain
Ignite the barren emptiness
Of not knowing
Only
I sit there, on the floor
Waiting
Rubbernecking like nobody’s business
Wholeheartedly believing
Now I’ll understand
Now it’ll all make sense
I’ll get it
Understand
I’ll know what this life is all about
What I’ve been missing
I’ve lived into my how-to manual
People will come rushing through the terminals
Hard earned years of enlightenment
They’ll bustle in their hurried fever
Of needing to get on with their lives
Because they have so much to live
What, with all that understanding
Due to age…
Only
I sit there, on the floor
Realizing the room is empty
It’s a stage with polished floors
And vaulted ceilings
Rows and rows of chairs
The nice cushy ones you might’ve fought your grandpa for
When you were four years old
I look around and see
The lights are off
I’m the only one on the stage
The crowd is empty
Those nice soft seats, void of any life
Any know-how to impart
That’s the first lesson I really learned
About everyone else,
Outside of my skin.
It didn’t knock off any innocence
I wasn’t shiny or brand new by then
That got rubbed off before I could speak
But I’d kept some silly hope that when you said
“When you’re older you’ll understand”
…that you spoke the truth.
You did not.
The truth is
No one knows.
I found this out, sitting cross-legged
Like a child
Vibrating with enthusiasm
And excitement
Ready to warm my hands
At the fire of everyone’s experience
With the heat of age
That’d crept into my body
That everyone told me, made me
Better, somehow
Like numbers of lived life
Ups your worth in some cosmic game
And so you earn more lives
And redeemable information to trade
For a bunch of useless tasks, you performed…because….
Still sitting on an empty floor
Holding a ticket that leads nowhere.
By Daphne Shadows
Photo is property of Daphne Shadows
One roach
Two roach
Three roach
Bonjour.
Four roach
Five roach
Kitchen’s a dance floor.
Six roach
Seven roach
Eight roach
War!
Nine roach
Ten roach
DIE!
*ahem*
I mean –
Nevermore.
And yes, I remember you.
Slinking through the corridors at night while no one was watching.
I saw you.
I knew you.
I remember the air in your veins breathing past my lips.
Filling every heartbeat until my teeth burned.
They didn’t know you had a secret.
Or where you went.
I knew you.
They say you don’t exist.
By Daphne Shadows
There are these
Stilted Scarecrows
Jolting about
On corpse legs
Forcing their way
Into my line of
Vision
Throwing blood about
Beating on a drum
Funny
They choose not to notice
My silence
The past
Cannot be
Re-done
Re-spoken
Some wounds
Cannot heal
Until the
Scar tissue
Is erased
In another life
So desperate
For me to be
Sitting around
The fire
With you
But I remember
What those embers
Can do
I’ve collected
These Scarecrows
Though I’m really
Not certain how
Or why
They shamble around
In the dark
Just out of sight
Waiting to pounce
To stitch their bony joints
Into my hair
I’ve befriended
Murders of crows
I’ve decorated
My home
With them
Etched them
Into my bones
And yet
These Burning Eyed
Scarecrows
They find me
Clothed in dead skins
Sickles in their hands
Carved faces
Straw innards
They haunt
Ghoulish calls
Carrying clappers
And stones
They are my funeral march
Hurling perilously
Into the fires they create
Pinning me the patsy
I’ve collected
These Scarecrows
They keep hiding behind
Death masks
I do not belong
To them
But they claw
At my skin
Their past presence
Scarring my Sight
I belong to the ravens
I side with the crows
By Daphne shadows
