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
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
I am so excited to announce that I am officially getting back into writing.
It has been much too long.
I am a storyteller and not writing has been quite painful.
The only thing that has kept me from imploding was writing this blog and poetry.
When you know what your calling in life is – do it.
What is your calling?
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
emotion
is not a
Death
Sentence
i wish
i knew
how to
feel
without
going
Mad
By Daphne Shadows
My feet
They won’t walk right
My legs
They don’t shift light
My thoughts
So staggered
My sense
It’s shattered
No meter, no rhythm
Guess the lies never mattered
by Daphne Shadows
Weakness is masquerading as strength, walking among us with flashy muscles and a hollow heart.
What’s worse, is it rubs our noses in it.
What’s worse,
is some stay silent.
Weakness has slithered into our
Subconscious and rewired our sight
It has ripped from the corpses
Of its victims
And fashioned a strong looking Giant
It whispers
And we don’t turn away
We listen
We don’t fight back.
Is that why some join in?
For the lack of having to care
Exerting energy, compassion
The possibility of vulnerabilty
is it really
that terrifying
the a person would prefer
to burn another alive
so they never
have to learn what
a paper cut feels like?
Those who cry from the loss of a loved one
Or a life they thought was real
But found to be lies stitched together by the soul of one who
Pretends to have no heartbeat
-Them
They are eaten alive
By this instant gratifying, short lived pleasure dripping mask
This charade
That somehow
They are weak.
We are told the ones who are weak
Are those who fall down
More than once
And sometimes don’t tell
A soul
That theirs is slowly breaking down
And they don’t know what to do
We are told the weak ones
Are those who
Wake every day
With the knowledge
That their demons are still
Inside their blood, their skull,
In the marrow of their bones
And they have to fight them off
Again
and Again
And Evermore
Or cede one moment and
Never return to breathe
Those who feel
I mean Really Feel
And live like it all matters
Those who find life
Sacred
Worth fight for
Worth spilling would-be murderous blood
Worth dying for
Those who hurt
When another hurts
When a human is ripped away
From another soul
When a dog is
Tortured
A cat set on fire behind that building
Those who sob at home
When they see the pain
On the children’s faces
On tv
Those who ache
Because they can do nothing
For their love
Wrongly Accused
Wrongly Hated
Wrongly Treated
Battered and broken and treated
Like so much trash
Those who want life
But don’t know how to fight
Those who cry
Who hurt
Rage in their heart
Wish for some
Magical power
To make it all better
We are told that these people are the weak ones.
That the people who
Shoot for fun
Who hurt because they can
Rape like its a rite of passage
Lie to get what they want
Pretend they feel nothing
When inside
They are bleeding from every cell
That feeds into their
Battered heart
Hardly beating within a hollow
Cage made of bones and paper scraps
The people who give up on
Those who aren’t strong “like them”
The people who ressent those who
Hurt
Who can’t get back up right away
Like they pretend to
Who have to fight the same battle every day
Like they don’t bother to
Who keep getting hit with the same car
In their living room
Where there are no streets
No reason for someone
To drive through their home
And attack
Because they think it is fun
Because it feels good to hurt another
Because they no longer truly feel
Anything
But blood lust
And arrogance
An urge to strike
To force down
To hold mouths shut
and remove another’s power
We are told that these people are the strong ones.
Because they pretend they don’t feel
Until they don’t
Because they take what they want
By erasing another’s life
We are told that the people who are weak
Are the ones
Asking for help.
What scares me most, is when we believe their lies.
When we don’t stand up
We don’t cry
For people to see
We don’t step up to and beside those
Who have echoed what we know is truth
And speak truth with them
Even thought it is terror in our blood
And our bodies shake
And our hearts pound
But that’s the difference
We let the fear flow through us
as we stand for what we know
is hard
but right
What scares me is when
We don’t grab the hand
Of those who can’t find the words
Or the sense or the hope
And are seeking an anchor
A lighthouse
In another soul
So theirs doesn’t
Burn out
Like Gandhi once said,
“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
We are all strong and we are all weak. Simply in different places and at different times.
To pretend apathy, hate, the cold heart… is strong, is to end any chance we have at a life worth living. At a world we can attempt to call humane. To pretend we are not who we are, is to put the gun in our own mouths, pull the trigger, and keep walking around, like we are somehow real.
