Category: Other

Grace is off the table.

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Bennie Lukas Bester from Pexels

I’m taking off my nice smiles and exchanging them for a better price,

Selling them for a hard bargain, melting them into tools I wear with pride.

Thighs scared, elbows bruised, cheeks still bloody but I’m not done.

I’m open to taking another beating, your fists are weightless,

My ego weighs tons.

I’m channelling the boys, increasing the tempo, the values, the voice,

Cooking up the perfect scene, then burying their heads in the voids.

And I don’t take their protests for granted, I fill them with poise.

The moment their act becomes nasty, I turn the volume up

To cut open their toys.

-JW

Insomniac

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Andreea Ch from Pexels

I count to ten before letting the medusa hair out of the hat,

Before turning my back, before turning this white rabbit

Into a sickly rat.

I check my own pulse and clear my throat before biting,

Before swallowing the ink and flirting with the end.

Dusk makes this scene exciting.

I imagine a stadium of people before continuing this dance,

Before jumping in front of a fast moving thought and combusting

Into bones and fangs.

I bow before the cheering crowds start pointing sticks,

Before the insomnia once again settles in, drowns me out,

Tells me it’s something that I can’t fix.

-JW

Eight Minutes To Fall Asleep

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

The wheels are in motion, I move to the side.

Sounds startle my mind but I still let it slide.

Messages, greetings and formal promotions.

I move to the side, but the wheels are in motion.

An ode to terror, a hymn to my insomniac brain.

I’ll suffer for closure, not gonna let it die in vain.

Booklets, sliding doors and seven errors.

The hymn to my insomnia, the ode to my terror.

Eight minutes to fall asleep, two seconds to die.

Once you pull the ring off, even the heavies will fly.

So I hold myself close, this moment is mine to keep.

Two seconds to die.

Eight minutes to fall asleep.

-JW

Saved?

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Flora Westbrook from Pexels

Slender figures rushing the foggy streets in agony,

Struggling to pay for the rent of their own minds,

An irony, a travesty.

I run with them past armed guards and loopy culverts.

The dogs are onto us the second we hit the road.

They want to make us the culprits.

We see purple cloaks rolling down the streets like carpets,

Altering the sights of the city, choking out those

That grew defiant.

Rays of sun playing on sharpened edges of machetes.

The weak are taken back to their rooms with menace,

Others become enlistees.

The fog is entering my flaring nostrils, it’s spreading.

My legs become numb to the pain of their teeth.

I fall on the floor, staining the bedding.

-JW

Amusements

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

They ensure that we’re kept alone during the nights

Because during the nights time stands still.

It never, ever flies.

It’s a simulator ride through the paths of our brain

That should’ve been kept under supervision,

Locked in the chains.

They ensure we can hear each other screaming at night

Because at night the sound travels faster

And it dims the light.

It’s a haunted attraction we paid for with our last morals

But we never agreed to participate

So why are they giving us back our dollars?

-JW

The Silver Age

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Flora Westbrook from Pexels

A new foggy moon rises above the city, it burns like acid

And it runs on pain we’re swallowing to keep ourselves gaslit.

There aren’t any blushing faces, only grey wooden sculptures

Carved out of those of us who forgot when to unfollow the culture.

Enchanted silver surfaces set out as traps –

We do know better but we still give in,

We burn the books and the maps.

A new Gravitron sun spins around us making the city dizzy

And it runs on the acid we’re spitting up to pretend we’re busy.

No eyes looking up in the streets, just crowds blending together,

Dragging their feet towards the buzz of heads being severed.

Enchanted silver surfaces set out as traps –

We do know better but we still give in,

We burn the books and the maps.

-JW

Apathy 101

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Flora Westbrook from Pexels

I bid my soul to the devil to relieve me of the pressure

And I begged the gods to take me.

They said they don’t deal with the fractured.

I don’t want to be unthankful, I just don’t think I’m alright

Because whenever the sun sets again

I’m crying for the dying night.

I waltz around rooms to walk out the sinister notions.

Churches crumble before my eyes,

I’m stale, envying those in motion.

And the silver lights of the forgotten city call for me…

I’m too weak to hold back the tears.

To everyone I knew – sorry for the apathy.

-JW

Kittens

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

Someone pointed it out passing by and I cannot shake the disgust

Of what the men following my scared scent were dying to discuss.

Oh, is the skirt too short and buttons too loose for your expensive taste?

“Such a pretty face, too bad all that make up and attitude makes it a waste.”

It’s not the first time this week I’m hearing this centuries old, morbid story,

And I’m not in my teens so I should take it easy and perhaps, just maybe, be sorry?

What a compliment though, their eyes and cars keep following wherever you go

Hence it shouldn’t be a problem, and even if it was – how would you know?

“You’re a lady after all, stop acting like you don’t enjoy being approached

With a bit of flirt, even if it’s scaring you – don’t yell, don’t bring the reproach.”

Keep your mind open if it’s disturbing, some kittens will be drowned in the making

But you can only change culture of power plays and toxic overtaking

If you don’t confuse it with innocent romance-baiting.

Berate all you want, but it’s still your beasts who deserve crating.

-JW

The Origin Story

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment
Photo by Sunyu Kim from Pexels

One of those way too hot summer days but I’m trying to make it work.

Haven’t had a meal since Monday, yet I’m feeling they’re ready to lurk.

Putting my best foot forward on the dusty, forgotten town roads at north –

Not even five minutes in, a horde on my back breaking all the walls,

Even the fourth.

The sentences sneak up slowly, they’re there to capture and also – to kill.

Haven’t thought of myself this way. My blood runs cold, it stays still.

Every step I take gets heavier – or am I heavier now? Impossible to tell.

The darkest of thoughts thus far rush to my brain, and my eyes blink,

Ready to swell.

Shaking and scared to the core, I walk faster to avoid the burning heat

Of the words spoken so meanly, so categorically, and I know I don’t deserve

The right to breathe

Unless I’m good enough, tiny and form-fitting enough,

Plenty from all the sides and angles enough,

Enough, enough, enough.

Why wasn’t it enough?

Why did you have to say it out loud, would it make your parents proud?

Why did you chase me down like a hunter chases down its prey with a hound,

Hoping I won’t make a sound?

Because here I am eight years later writing this story,

Hopeful, enough and proud, wishing my father would call me

To also admit that, honestly, he’s been bathing in his own “sorry”,

And too blinded by the shine of gold, for the lack of a better allegory.

But on my worst days I’m still in that summer day eight years back, ready to go,

To disappear into nothing – if that’s more pleasing to strangers who I don’t even know.

Placing my best foot forward, keeping it together so tight it my break my heart altogether

But I guess it’s all a circumstance of the gruelling weather

And my thighs not being lighter than a fallen feather.

-JW

A Beautiful Day To Die

jackiewrightauthorLeave a comment

The sun is playing on bare skinned people passing by, not reaching me yet.

I’ve become a mirror to the world’s worst battle cries, the symbol of debt.

Would be a lie if I claimed I’d rather touch the rays instead of reflecting –

It’s a beautiful day to die from overdosing on medals I’ve been collecting.

Never thought of myself as a warrior, cleaning up foreign messes, not my own,

Making sure as a foreigner I hide my own truths and give my illness a loan

To take out later, when I’m crumbling in the concrete walls of another city

Where windows are larger than life and privacy means you must be guilty.

All these second-hand “thank you” notes I’ve gathered now don’t mean a thing –

Loneliness carries itself just royally well until it finds a place to sting.

Then you’re down with the venom tearing your vision apart, installing mirrors.

You feel like it’s a beautiful day to die if you get to see the world any clearer.

But that was then – I continue to walk the streets with my growing reflective hopes.

I’ve become the mirror to the world’s battle cries but I’m no longer a ghost.

***

I shut the neon gates to my city.

The rebels are gone with the winds of fog colored in pity.

The small picture’s gone, replaced with only this memory

Of how I treated the streets I created as an enemy

I know I can’t reach my younger self but I’ll try through this revery:

Love, I hope you remember me.

-JW