These wooden doors I carve out on Friday nights
Turn to gravestones under the Sunday light.
These violet hopes I hold in my bottomless pockets
Grow engines and shells, then turn into rockets.
The pit in my stomach tells me money is sacred
But only if I can imagine them naked.
The scarf on my neck gives me scars so bloody
I curse the cruel gods who created my body.
-Jackie
The pain in my stomach makes ripples,
Then folds in half like dark waves.
My mood walks on water, then crumbles
And takes me back to my grave.
The headaches live under my skull now.
I haven’t seen sunlight since May.
They tell me I’m not doing poorly,
Almost like I don’t have a say.
-Jackie
My brothers stood on steep hills
With sharp wind in their faces.
They looked for me in pale crowds,
They missed me in dark places.
My brothers killed the last traitors
When they came for my head.
Seven years stood between us,
Seven fates ripped like threads.
My brothers listened to echoes
Until the pain turned to greed.
My own brothers sold tickets
As crowds made my soul bleed.
My brothers wait for my death,
They hope my spine will falter.
I am their last breathing sister.
Their necks will become my altar.
-Jackie
I hope the matching tattoo is healing better on your skin than it is on mine.
Time played tricks and fate fooled us twice but you crossed the dotted line.
Years flew by but I stood still, counting on you to give me back the whole moon.
I hope my red ink haunts you through hectic nightmares like a furious goon.
-Jackie
If we part our ways tonight, perhaps one holy day
I won’t need to imagine what it feels like to be loved.
If I land this last curse, perhaps you will sigh in pain,
But perhaps I will wait here for the push to shove.
You treat me like a headache on a rainy fall night
That kills your joy and pulls you in its red claws.
I begged for care while you killed me with freedom.
The land was long dead when you wrote its first laws.
If I leave you to die here with this curse you carry,
Will you dance with your fate or will you push through?
If another one falls for the beast in sheep’s clothing,
Will I finally let myself blame this on you?
-Jackie
I am frozen in time, watching my feelings become inconsequential
They fall like snowflakes into piles and evaporate under my gaze
You were the great love of my life, you were my greatest tragedy
Sparks suffocated under assumptions in our lustful summer daze
I took you for wind, I took you for wings, I almost took you home
Your tongue was a blade I learned to walk without cutting my feet
You took my word for it, you took every inch of privacy I once owned
And I never thanked you for cheering when I finally had to retreat
Your apartment is still there but I do not pass the building anymore
Running into you could heal me but it could also tear me into two
Your favorite candy sits on my kitchen table and I smile to myself
Imagining how something so golden could turn into something so blue
-Jackie
Loveless phrases are spilling out of me like a curse.
My only vice was despising cruel people in reverse.
Thoughts carry me like doves, they carry me in a hearse,
And if I cry for help, I will be murdered by a nurse.
Horrendous images project on my eyelids for days.
Wise people left me for dead but some still chose to stay.
The cracks are spreading like the horsemen of my dismay.
I am far beyond repair, do not warm up the clay.
-Jackie
Thoughts of my younger self haunt me like fury and bloodlust.
Back then my pale neck ached from carrying sapphire crowns.
These days every sentence feels like a trap that will snap me,
And words slide in between my ribs until I bleed nouns.
My smile is drawn on every morning, not that it matters.
There are holes in my story but no one checks alibis twice.
There is a rope wrapped around my waist leading ambitions nowhere,
I wish this sadness was not a knife, wasting me slice by slice.
Those hot tears I once cried now give me frostbites each morning,
The bed rot consumes my heavy bones each night.
I used to think that sunrise could cleanse my chest of this sickness,
But it takes more than time to get to the gleaming light.
-Jackie
Coherent thoughts escape my bloodshot skull and drying tongue.
Red stars form into constellations while tar fills my two lungs.
I stay up haunting ghosts and braving flea-bitten memories,
And sun might rise in a few hours but I must find a new remedy.
Caffeine, wine and white agony mix sweet drinks in my chest.
Why does dread taste like candy but hope hisses like a pest?
The crowd of people on the bridge turned out to be just smoke,
But every person I talk to takes my delusions as a joke.
I do not sleep until the fist of god knocks me unconscious.
I pray to my own moral compass, asking it to stay cautious.
The night comes and fate runs me like a hamster on a wheel.
One of these days death will consume like an overdue meal.
-Jackie
Flatworms are feeding on my pale heartstrings
While thick fog forms around the graveyard trees.
Nobody’s coming to steal my silver bullets
Or this cursed tongue behind my rotting teeth.
Some say memory fades fast once you’re gone
Yet my skull feels heavier than a steel anchor.
My bones are so hollow, they swallow the ground,
And my regrets are longer than oil tankers.
Between hot showers and the morning tea,
Being stone cold sober did not get me too far.
Love came in waves and still oceans.
Love came crashing down and it left me scarred.
I still know the name but I’m keeping it here,
In my grave, in my worms and in my heart.
Once I become nothing, I’ll scream and scream,
And my demons will find you, no matter how far.
-Jackie
The Daily Writing of Jackie Wright 