I can’t kill the buzz, no, I can’t kill the buzz.
It tames me, it puts me on my knees,
It rips off my innocence and my peach fuzz,
And it won’t stop, it won’t hear my pleas.
I can’t drown in out, no, I can’t drown it,
There’s nothing better on the news.
I sit and listen as the clocks keep counting,
There’s nothing left for me to lose.
-JW
Did I just do it, did I sell out?
Now that my soul has a price tag on it,
Are you finally proud?
I will be tortured for the rest of my days,
Taking your face with a grain of salt
And a layer of glaze.
But I suffer in radio silence,
That is what I was taught to do,
Be my own worst tyrant.
You must be completely devastated,
You must feel ecstatic,
Powerful and emasculated.
And you watch as I fade away,
You do not blink or breathe.
I become the prey.
Tell me, did I do it, did I sell out?
Now that my eyes have pain behind them,
Are you finally proud?
-JW
I watch you slipping up in lies, forgetting your lines.
It is a compromise –
I over-apologize whenever I break yet another disguise.
You cross out my name, then drown it in blame.
A game is a game, honey,
And once you lose, we cannot be the same.
But I still pay my dues, I pay your rent in blues.
There is just one you.
I wish your fuse did not fit me like a shoe.
You put your pain on me, call your misfortunes my destiny.
I guess the gods are really testing me,
Pumping you full of glee and fallacies.
-JW
The trees are going to fall like they have been cut with a knife,
And the bodies hanging onto their roots will come back to life.
The moon will bear its children on the top of the steepest hill,
And the sceptics will watch in awe, standing on windowsills.
The highest tower is going to collapse like a house of cards,
And nobody will be exempt from taking a shard to the heart.
The rivers will run evergreen with poison ivy and pesticides,
And non-believers will call the casualties assisted suicides.
The meadows are going to run with red streams of carnation,
And all the misguided ghosts will escape their eternal damnation.
The deep seas will rise higher than my ever-boiling wrath,
And the critics will drown face-first in the brewing bloodbath.
-JW
I lay the bloodstained roses on your bed
As my soul shrivels up like a leaf.
The mirrors are grinning with teeth made of lead,
They are begging me to leave.
White mist sneaks around the freezing room,
Trying hard to steal my breath.
My fingers are dripping blood on the floor
As the thorns show no regret.
I draw a scarlet circle on the wall,
Then another one on my forehead.
The air smells of iron and early fall,
And everything feels so foreign.
I pick up the stained roses from your bed
As my heart ceases to exist.
The sky is laughing and crying red,
And I finally breathe in the mist.
-JW
Today I’m thankful for you,
Even for leaving me alone in the desert,
Even for letting me down,
Letting me drown in my own hurt.
Truly, I’m thanking you –
For the reasonable and the absurd.
I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt,
And it’s more than you’ve ever deserved.
I watch others drop their mirrors,
I see them struggling to breathe.
They cut their fingers on what’s already shattered
As I watch from a quiet backseat.
Their emotions get the best of them,
They glue the pieces together in rage.
But my tears are frozen in time,
Trapped in an aluminum cage.
For that, I’m thankful to you.
You don’t have a heart and neither do I.
As the world collapses on itself,
I never even cover my eyes.
Today I’m choosing gratitude,
But tomorrow I’m going to remember.
You froze me to death when you walked away,
I’ve been numb for six Decembers.
-JW
Tonight, I cannot let myself fall asleep,
Cannot follow them when they drag me into the deep.
One eye open, one eye rolled back.
I lie on my bed with a knife behind my back.
The ceiling is black like a starless night,
And I am counting breaths before the end of this fight.
One eye open, one eye on the door.
This is not my first war, they have been keeping score.
There is always more than just this darkness.
My heart is obscure, but it is praying to the fathers.
One eye open, one eye looking at them,
Snarling, shaking, hot drool sparkling like gems.
No, I cannot follow them, I must stay,
Must keep their sharp nails and claws away.
One eye open, one eye unfazed.
As they reach for my neck, sunrays hit my face.
Saved.
-JW
How loud do I have to scream for you to stop insinuating
That I am not simulating,
Manipulating or overstimulating?
I am not wrapping your reality in dark veils,
Falling on safety nets when all else fails,
I am just screaming for help.
But you say I draw attention to myself,
You choose to keep your emotions on a glass shelf.
And deep down I get it,
I am glad that I do not have to live it.
Must be lonely watching people through a magnifying glass,
Judging their class
While lounging in an ivory tower.
Must be hard to find it was a looking glass all along,
And your words were just crass,
They were wrong.
So, how loud do I have to be to make you see?
Until they dig a hole in the grass,
All my broken pieces will keep cutting open your legacy.
Your brokenness will be a part of me.
-JW
And maybe this will not pass,
And maybe we must make our peace with that.
If the darkness carries us down the stream,
Let it,
Let it all be.
Just know that maybe it will not pass,
And they will say “sorry” and other words that do not last.
We are meant to be bruised,
Miss the things that we lose,
Walking down empty avenues.
And maybe this will never pass,
Maybe the present is glued to the past.
I count down the days,
Wishing this is not my last,
Hoping I can find the way,
But the time –
It is slipping through my fingers a little too fast.
-JW
Her locks held sweet cherry scent,
And I held her like a breath.
Those moments were heaven-sent,
But I wreaked the clouds,
I failed her tests,
Still hoping she would be proud.
It was not the same, it never is.
Her screams and my shouts,
From lovers to enemies.
The watchers gathered in crowds
As I returned her jewelry,
Then took up a new route,
Knowing I am killing my destiny.
-JW
The Daily Writing of Jackie Wright 