Tag: family issues

The Sixth Year

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You’re smearing empty words all over the newspapers,

Making me curse loud enough to wake the neighbors.

I haven’t seen your face in six years but I know

You still bring the darkness wherever you go.

And once I was foolish enough to follow the trail,

Despising guardian angels for letting me fail.

Now I see you in a car purchased with blood money,

Bought by selling my hopes out, and ain’t that funny?

Blood’s only thicker than water for the lucky ones,

The roots you laid down in me won’t ever see the sun.

And the faux promises you spilled have evaporated,

They’re sleeping in the shadows, dangerously sedated.

It’s alright though, my rage can escape all your abysses,

But you can’t escape the truth or live without your fixes.

So just pray to the gilded gods that you can make it,

Just pretend one more day that if I can fake it,

You can also fake it.

-JW

No Light

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Red lollipop between her pale blue cheeks,

She’s not taking any prisoners today.

Second-hand bag and third rate heels.

Her mother’s hips and dad’s ashtray.

She stands tall by the neon but feels so small.

Parents never lifted her up very high.

Never her father’s princess of the ball,

Always the first to get a black eye.

With so much fake light, it’s hard to see stars

But she squints each night to catch one.

When the scenery turns into cold iron bars,

She’s off in another car,

Pretending to chase a mock sun.

-JW

Waterproof

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You should never speak to me again or even look at this direction.

The floor is made of paper cut-outs of your short aggressions.

I’m dirty, I haven’t been baptized since you entered the room.

Ceiling hanging over my neck as a guillotine but you’re yet to learn –

Under pressure I bloom.

All that’s been taken by you during decades, please, take even more.

My back is strong enough to never look back, doesn’t mean it’s not soar.

The next time we go toe to toe, don’t beg me to stay like you always do.

You should never speak of me again or ever assume for one second

My soul isn’t waterproof.

-JW

Honey Honey

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Honey, the kids aren’t doing alright this time around –

Our screaming from dusk till dawn is not like the movies have shown

And The Death Watch is making its rounds.

But honey, it’s not that gruesome, we didn’t hit hard –

The big sister got what’s coming, the little sister learned how to sprint

And how to keep up the guard.

And Hun, it’s not unusual, violence is what keeps us together –

A vulture and its prey… Which one of them is the killer? Do we even care

If they’re birds of a feather?

Honey, the little one seems traumatized, should we be quiet –

Or should she learn the rules to being her mother’s daughter already

Before starting a riot?

Oh, Hun, she’s not taking the yelling and fists too well –

Are we not normalizing the scenery enough with the props and all?

Will she hate us if she dwells?

***

“Honey, Honey, the kids aren’t doing alright still, I’m sorry to break it.

One of you under the ground, the other continuing the legacy of trauma –

It is not my place to strangle your stamina or shake it

But you could have picked a better melodrama

Than the lives you ruined by trying to make it.”

-JW

Purposeful Violence

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My friends heard you know how frisky I get when I stand by a man like you.

There you are, punching holes in my paper walls after learning that we’re through.

No call backs though, no carton airplanes flying off this cliff I’ve put you on.

Six long months of miseries and resolving your twisted mind – do you even know

How much it hurts? I bet you don’t.

Never have I admitted to liking this game you’re lobbying but I read the rules –

A punch to the gut is a sign of love, a stab in the back is love times two.

Some days I wonder how I got that far, tearing myself up for a taste of passion –

The closest feeling to being cut in pieces with a hot knife and distributed

To everyone I hate in rations.

“Never trust a perfect person,” they say, but then ask you to stop being picky.

Apparently romance is only great if the ice is thin and each step is tricky.

Let’s be truthful – it’s all about how it seems, not how it feels, haven’t you noticed?

The worse your mental state gets with each fight, the more they cheer your passion

And give violence a purpose.

-JW

Blood Is (Not) Thicker

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As cold as these memories are, I’ll try torching them nonetheless.

The rose tattoo on my shoulder is freezing, the shakes are becoming effortless.

The marrow in the bones is long gone, my hunger doesn’t stand a chance.

And I’m sorry that I’m so damn spoiled – I tried to warn you in advance.

I see troops marching with the machines, gathering their accolades.

My tongue – twisting in an endless loop, seeking words to dull the blades.

It is never easy to lose the one you looked for to a petty act of vengeance.

Why in our twenties we’re acting like we owe respect to ancestors

And also – descendants?

It’s good to have pride but how much honor can each generation carry?

Every step hurts the parents, every misstep – kids; cheeks burning redder than sweetest cherries.

As scary as it is to leave the past behind and future ahead, I will take my chances.

Surviving from second to second, trusting my mind, not my blood-addicted senses.

-JW

Bloodline

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And my bloodline charged me with arson

Even though I simply lit one spark.

They tried me for treason – no particular reason,

They didn’t want me to leave a mark.

“Let the witches burn, don’t fight it,” I say,

“Let them scream, let’s imagine it’s all realer than real.”

I embrace how they turn the narrative to betray.

One can boil blood but can’t melt steel.

With this low gaslight temperature

They’re ruining the play.

I’m not here to stay.

-JW

Buzzkill

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My father will never call me back again but I don’t mind.

Three years stuck in an infinite loop, butchered by my own emotions.

Feeling less than human. My demons were aligned.

I’m done gulping cheap flavors from shallow glasses like they’re potions.

I’m done being defined.

My father will never call me back again but it’s not my fault.

All that matters are people who will pick up the phone when it’s unpleasant.

It might be late or it might be inconvenient, yet they dare to open that vault

Without being compromised by the front that I present –

And it changes, but they stay through the halt.

My father will never call me back again, and sun rises at the east.

Accepting our truths does not mean we’re giving in. We’re far ahead.

Never in my life have I felt less lonely – look at all the weapons I’ve seized,

Built by my destructive heart that wished I was already dead…

Living is not a walk in the park, it’s a feast.

I will never pick up when my father calls. Let him choke on the ringtones and words never said.

-JW

Bloodline

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Have bled through the walls of this haunted house I’ve built for myself

While others called me a quitter I stitched it, bookshelf by bookshelf.

It’s a nasty process, crawling through corpses to find yourself –

At one point you stop worrying about the medals and only attack to repel.

Have cried rivers for all the wrong people and killed my darlings in the process,

But no one told me it’s wrong – they only asked me to hide and oppress.

So I learned from my sins. I built a fence around the house so I can care less.

Took me two years to figure out that you only gain deeds if you aggress.

Have spat into the eyes of gods when they asked me to die, this I don’t regret.

Sure, not that happy about living another day, but I hate losing a bet,

Especially the one my bloodline put on my head, framed my photo in vignette.

The fact that I made it out in one piece, in cold sweat,

Always seemed to make them upset.

-JW