Category: Jackie’s diaries

The Red Line

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Not all my innocence is lost, I just hide it with fury.

You crossed a red line today,

And I guess now you will have to sue me,

No, I am not taking my anger off the front pages.

Let them read it too,

Let them see how harmful your rage is.

And do not call your bloodthirsty intentions “attraction”.

I will never tolerate it,

I will tear you into the smallest fractions.

Let me light the matches and start the forest fire,

Watch it consume your life

And rot you in the eyes of your admirers.

Not all my innocence is lost, I hide it with my youth.

You were wrong when you assumed

That I will not scream the truth.

-JW

Hive

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When all goes according to plan, my inner critic eats me alive.

The easy way is never the right one,

And the mind must always buzz like a hive.

Even if my head works like a charm and I manage to lift the curse,

My head drips red judgement ink

Into an electric anxiety hearse.

When the watch is not running the hours correctly, I crumble.

There is a part in me I fear the most,

A part that never learned to be humble.

Even if I master the minutes, the rhythm is never quite correct.

My tongue cuts open the folds of my brain,

Replaces thoughts with lies and neglect.

-JW

Before I Drown

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They keep telling me how I should step into the white light,

How I should chase it with even whiter noise and whiter lies.

I hide between juniper branches during the darkest nights,

Using poisonous berries and figs as my only disguise.

They creep up my legs but cannot take the violent screeches.

My back grows horns as soon as they whimper and cry.

I have been shooed away by seven dishonored preachers,

Saying wicked creatures like me should not even try.

But I learned to see the light in people’s actions years ago.

My pride swallows itself again when I fail to see my own.

They keep telling me that I could out-spin pure vertigo.

I grin and quietly whisper:

“This is my last plea before I drown.”

-JW

Do Not Stop

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The dust falls from the sky just like snow did this winter.

It was so many moons ago, but I remember the splinters.

My feet used to carry me past snow piles with such grace,

But death was covering my coffin in dark grey lace.

Sleep was my most violent nemesis, it kept me starving.

The fatigue quickly got to the point where it felt alarming.

I whispered to myself, praying I can keep going forward,

Hoping this is not the last sentence in my foreword.

The cold got to me, and my legs gave out almost daily.

Some mornings I could not get up as the room felt hazy.

My pupils swam aimlessly in my eye sockets for hours.

I dreamt of building bridges when I was burning towers.

-JW

Running In Place

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They are building a new house in my local park.

I have been running there for a whole year,

Been tripping over my shoelaces in the dark.

And I have no problem admitting my fears –

Change feels like a burden to me these days,

I am too afraid to ever hold something dear.

The sun keeps showering me with pity rays.

They tell me that headlights killed the deer.

Happy tears roll down my face like on cue,

I overstress about how I seem and appear.

You know the feeling, I really hope you do,

Because for the first time I truly need you here.

It is not a rut, it is not that I have grown blue.

I just cannot run on empty for another year.

-JW

Facade

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All the greatest facades have cracks if you look from the other side.

I get tired of playing an open book when I remember all those little things

That I must always hide.

No, you could never imagine the weight I carry behind my solar plexus.

My eyes pull you in but just you wait, one day you will see the darkness,

So gloomy, so reckless.

My well-kept secrets will keep me from ascending to the red throne.

I know that my own nature will keep me pinned down to the ground

Until I am sooty and alone.

-JW

It Follows

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There is a banshee watching me from the roof,

Chewing on fat and looking for proof.

Six whole years have passed since I left the town,

I still look like a runaway bride in her gown.

And city sunsets take away the spinning demeanor.

The tongues of my ghosts only get meaner.

Moon projects my birthplace onto the ceiling.

There is no healing from this empty feeling.

There is a banshee wailing on my windowsill.

The room goes out of focus, but I stay still.

Six whole years spent running as fast as I can

Come crumbling down under fate’s wingspan.

-JW

Traps

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After decades of outgrowing the good-for-nothing small-town tropes,

I close my lids some nights, asking the darkness – why do I still cope?

Not that I demanded it, no, not that I begged them to give me a rope.

But holding onto my road helps when I start losing the gilded hope.

It is funny, a thought can fly faster than a silver bullet through the sky.

I never requested a single favor, and nobody ever asked me “why”.

Now the mud is seeping through the cracks, it is muffling my cries,

And once again I find myself back in my hometown,

Feeling like a trapped butterfly.

-JW

In Their Words

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The pigment in my irises left the day I cut off my roots.

It must have been the freedom poisoning the wind,

It made me put on the boots.

When I started walking, their cheers turned into boos.

It must have been the pride swallowing me whole

That turned me into a fool.

And I never beat the lonely current, never met a real man.

Whenever someone acted overly nice,

I refused a helping hand.

The cold shards of glass in my heart turned back into sand.

When a good god offered his only soul to me,

I burned down his plans.

My fragile moral high ground collapsed under the city.

All I knew was falling for another naïve cause,

And I did not look pretty.

They tried to tell me, tried to convince me with their pity,

But I was not a schoolgirl looking for a sign,

I bit back whoever bit me.

-JW

Oh Father

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Oh father, my last dark omen, does the truth burn you as much as it burns me?

There is no exit, yet all you do is come up with new ways of abandoning me.

If ten years ago I could have chewed my own arm off to finally break free,

I would have left you cursing in the rearview mirror without missing a beat.

Now my sharp edges get rusty because I know a bit too much to scream out loud.

They ask how my father is doing, and I must act like I am goddamn proud.

My eyes leak salty rivers, yet somehow your frowning face never drowns.

I hope you smile when I burn your good deeds in front of a roaring crowd.

-JW