I’ve killed them all, don’t test it,
Don’t question my lessons.
I’ve broken high waves,
Exchanged dollars for tales.
Some shamed me for speaking,
Like they needed a reason,
But I kept my palms together
As they cut my feathers.
I’ve burned bridges and towns,
Stabbed ships until they drowned.
There is no end to violence,
Just bury me in violets.
And I’ve seen it all, I promise,
I’m rarely this honest.
Let me show you how to breathe
When you’re six feet underneath.
-JW
Your brain, it dictates you dark poetry.
Come and carve an artwork out of me.
I bleed black when you cut me open.
Baby, I’ve long been broken
Far beyond repair –
So don’t try to fixate on the just or the fair.
Cut away until there’s only an inky void left.
“Robbing me of breath is not a theft.”
Do your worst,
I’m neither your last nor your first.
Clean your knives without any guilt,
Don’t mind the guts that I’ve willingly spilled.
Trap my essence in a whiskey bottle,
Hide the mottle.
You need not worry when you fall asleep.
It wasn’t a creak,
It was only the wind in the attic.
Go ahead, close your eyes to the sound of static.
You didn’t hear the bottle break,
These days nightmares feel far from fake.
And the sound of blades getting sharpened
Shouldn’t make you this disheartened.
So don’t turn your head left.
“Robbing me of breath is not a theft.”
It is, however, a neon red perfidy
And, my dear, respectably and cursedly
You’ll bleed blue in your gilded sheets
Until your tongue is out of cheats.
My brain will dictate me scarlet rhymes
As it carves sense out of your senseless crimes.
-JW
My tongue gets sour and bitter, it dreams up revenge fantasies.
A while back I hired it a babysitter
But it still screams out violent prophecies.
They try to bite me with their fangs, strip me of the power,
Acting as the god almighty
While I recklessly destroy and devour.
And I know they refuse to be scared of my baby pink guts.
But my blade, it makes moves.
It doesn’t stop until someone else rots.
My teeth get blacker with each hex that I spew at their swords.
But they’ve brought their hijackers,
They take over my thoughts and words.
Although I know it’s too late, my tongue sharpens its knives
Ready to unleash all the hate
Right back at their crooked hives.
So the bitterness slips away, I trip on its tails while it passes,
And I’m fit to fight again
Until they whisper my name in history classes.
-JW
The voices get angrier when the big searchlight in the sky goes out.
They try to take me through the paths that gaslight and sow doubt.
I chase the intrusive thoughts away by turning into a bright red blot,
And it is not necessarily a goal of mine but I am shooting my shot.
I crawl on my knees through the darkened streets without any shame.
The sounds echo in my brain without finding a corner to tame.
But the stars above me look like silver clots in a dark despair sea,
The humming of its silky splashes tail my mind in a minor key –
Until there is nothing else, just another rigid body in the water.
Someone will pull me out with a fishing line, call me their daughter.
The cycle repeats, the runaway in me starts loving the searchlights.
Too often the happiest endings never happen
Because of the darkest nights.
-JW
There’s a meadow I visit in the loneliest of hours,
A meadow I disguised so it could be just ours.
I walk through it barefoot even when the bees sting,
Even when the peace is over and a blade is the king.
My basket fills with various poisonous flowers.
I pluck them ‘til I run out of my made-up powers.
Then I set the sunny field on fire with my hexes,
Sparks flying violently from my solar plexus.
The leaves burst into diamonds and crescent moons
Highlighting the dimness of these pale noons.
And I waltz back home through the deep forests
Wishing my wildflowers will make a man honest.
There I get my pipettes and spatulas in order –
I bought these after you called me a hoarder.
Drop by drop the deadly mixture comes alive.
My mind is buzzing roaringly like a hive.
And you beg for forgiveness but I can’t hear,
I get high on the sound of your worst fear.
So I hold the goblet and ask you once more:
“Who are you to rob me of all the valour?”
-JW
She’s at the piano, playing her fingertips numb and soul sore.
Tinsel in her hair, glitter on the wrists, her childish mind at war.
The party around her roars like gunfire, she almost disappears,
Blends into the background hiding behind her faceless peers.
She’s on her tenth cigarette even though she quit a long time ago.
Whisky in her system, fuel in her one-track mind ready to blow.
No sadness, no regret, just a ton of anger in a short linen dress –
But don’t lose a finger comforting her, she’ll never confess.
She’s rearranging the thoughts but coming to the same conclusion.
The shivers slide down her spine, hurting like a contusion.
“What’s promised, must be fulfilled,” she silently whimpers
And tries to ignore her own violently shaking fingers.
She’s on the balcony unamused, not even slightly entertained.
The man by the bar represents all her guilt doused in heated shame.
The bottles stacked on expensive tables shatter at her sight.
Her lungs collapse under the relief of crashing into the dolomite.
(The people sigh as he winces:
“She wasn’t in her right mind.”)
-JW
There’s nothing on my mind as I open the window and light a cinnamon scented candle.
The fragrant autumn air mixes with cinnamon creating a daydream difficult to dismantle.
My feet caressing the cold floor, circling and spinning with the music and the winds.
I lean forward and snap back, I wave my arms until I shake out the icky anxiety pins.
Nothing but the light, no one but the tiny warm flame and me waltzing around the room.
Nothing but the bare leaves levitating towards their death while trees await the next bloom.
The busy street by my building is almost suspiciously still, it’s quiet, it’s dead.
A nervous pain bites my skull. It might be the time to wrap myself up in the bed.
Nightmares enfold me, the dreams are all bad, they chew away at my deserved rest.
I try pinching myself but the scenery forces itself in my mind, it grows more obsessed.
The worst of demons try feasting on my fingers, I taste their venom in my system.
A pale girl in white passes me with her bike, yelling I should try and kiss them.
But I keep crawling backwards, turning my face away from their eleven tongues
Bruises all over my legs, one shoe missing…
The creature’s hissing, suddenly it lifts me up like tongs.
So high in the smoky air, there’s no way to breathe in, no way I can break free…
Suddenly, it lets me go and I’m falling – once I meet the ground, I’ll be nothing but debris.
Cold sweat pouring down my neck as I sit up in my dark bedroom through a violent scream.
Head pulsating through auras, through hallucinations, through shiver-like beams.
The mirror on the closet door looks frighteningly similar to the creature from the hellhole.
My mouth is dry, everything seems blurry – I swallow a pill and a bottle of water whole.
Shoulders shaking, pulse raising as I fantasise about dark figures weeping under my bed.
I pray to the same gods I curse out on workdays, I pray to the pastor I snapped like a thread.
Slowly, unwillingly the next day arrives, it lands on me with the force of seven seas.
The headache is still there and my vision is hazy, the pain is here to say, it seems.
I rock back and forth on the floor of the bathroom, I rock until I can no longer see.
The cloudy pictures slide by without making sense, I try to count breaths but only get to three.
The next time I open my eyes is the Monday morning, not sure how the weekend slipped by.
Twenty unanswered texts and five missed phone calls tell me I don’t have an alibi…
But who’s the victim? Why are my ankles scarred and thumbs – unsteady?
Why is my scorching head burning holes in the floor? Let me die already.
There are iron rods stabbed through my cervical vertebrae without visible wounds,
The pulsating pain echoes in my every nerve and muscle, my patience has no funds
So I shriek clawing at the tiles, punching the walls, scratching my thighs.
It hurts more every minute and I don’t care who gets scared by my morbid cries.
The film runs out of colour, it’s once again black for an eternity, it seems.
My weak wrists hold onto the last four walls standing while I float through the dreams.
One hour or one day, it all feels the same when you’re high in the agony peaks.
Not sure if I’m alive at all. Not sure if there’s any warmth in my neck or my blueish cheeks.
Contorted, forgotten, left alone in the room with my worst fear on the pedestal –
The vulnerability shows its crooked teeth and my polished stamina grows skeletal.
I gather the last of my spite to stand up and look into the gilded bathroom mirror
But the beast staring back at me has no familiar features so I let my blood simmer.
My palms look too clawlike, my scleras are scarlet, my neck – twisted to the side.
So I grab a lighter and the burnt out cinnamon candle
To destroy this monster with fire.
-JW
Sweat dripping down her chin as her warm breath vaporizes the winter air –
She’s the obnoxious type, insidious gaze and long tightly braided hair.
The smell of her floral deodorant is making me nauseous to the bone
So I watch her pass me from the onyx shadows, I want to get her alone.
She runs up the small hill and disappears for some time, have I lost her?
I’m fidgeting a cigarette bud between my fingers like an inept mobster.
Seven minutes pass and I hear her approaching the park again, I freeze.
A sigh of relief escapes my lips. I ready my fists to deal with this tease.
I’ve noticed her running by my windows ever since the last Christmas eve,
With her smouldering looks, with her black shoes, her heart of a thief.
It wasn’t attraction or passion, it was this beastlike, even primal desire
To choke her ashen, making the tip of her tongue burn with an ungodly fire.
So I wait where the streetlights can’t expose my pale complexion,
I shiver with anticipation as her feet cross the nearby intersection.
The closer her rhythmic steps come, the louder my right ear rings.
I even imagine someone finding her body when the first birds sing.
As she steps out of the light and into the poorly lit corner of the park
My arms reach for her shoulders – but there’s nobody in the dark.
Surprised I turn around, I spin like a lost child left alone in the mall.
Then I see it – right where the pathway emerges from the duskiness,
She stands staring, reminding me of a haunted doll.
I scream but no one hears my call.
-JW
And she painted her rooms black, every edge, every single wall.
The intruders thought she’d gone mad when visiting her that fall.
No one asked out loud though, they let it slide for the sake of it all.
She painted her rooms black, then laid on the floor dressed in white
Just to feel small.
And she cut off her long hair, she shortened her skirts and dresses.
The grass tickled her thumbs when she ran away from all the messes –
No one seemed to notice though, no one ever stopped the presses.
She cut off her hair and sold half of her closet,
She burned up their old addresses.
And she walked for miles gasping every time the glass cut open her skin,
The people throughout the city promised to cut off her fins.
No one said it but the intention was clear – no witch, no sin.
She walked the city, and each blade they pushed in her back
Felt like a tiny pin.
And she carried on, walked even faster, and readied her boats.
The village folks triumphantly whispered, “Witches never float.”
No one screamed in pain, they simply collapsed all at once.
She’s carried this weight for decades,
Let her finally empty the guns.
-JW
Don’t waste my time, I know how to do it on my own.
The tears dry by turning to ice while they call me Joan.
I might be a heroine but not yet a saint, don’t lean on this loan.
Sky stinks of pastels and my soul evaporates into acetone.
Birds outside of my window are shooting for the pale moon.
Hours passing by, promising that I can leave this place soon.
The destiny is dragging out my breaths to the ancient runes.
I don’t mind theatrics but this murder feels like a honeymoon.
The further down the road, the more absurd it all becomes.
So much time to spend, yet we have to follow the beat of the drums?
Let me scream into the world’s pillow while everyone hums.
So much time to waste, so many lively lungs but it seems –
No one is noticing the swords and the guns.
Am I speaking in tongues?
-JW
The Daily Writing of Jackie Wright 