The Haunting

Photo by Eugene Golovesov

There was a chill in the sigh that escaped your lips

Before your words drove blades into my bruised neck.

I thought I knew it all back when we built this ship.

I thought we could find a shore if I stayed on the deck.

My fingers wore your calluses like they were jewels,

The moonlight made my dark worries seem too small.

While I was asleep, you took the profits and tools,

And you hid the last prophets in my bedroom walls.

“A willing participant, a creature well below me.”

Did I will your cruel plans into my tranquil life?

Once they bury me, will they think of me as a trophy?

Will they ever find the chains, the cages, the knife?

-Jackie

Your Ghost

That ghostly string that ties us together,

It keeps tipping people over

When I stand up for what is right.

Those late night thoughts I gave you,

They keep bruising my knees

Whenever I see an unfiltered light.

That hand you used to touch my back,

It haunts my darkest nightmares,

And I wish I could kill you.

Your pale eyes stare me up and down.

They chase my every success.

But you won’t stop,

Will you?

-Jackie

The Long Road

A piece of me fell out of your holey pockets

As you carried my weight for seventeen miles.

The rivers were cold and the winds were ruthless.

The gods were playing with their rusty dials.

My waist broke under your touch like a twig

But the moonlight fell on my spine with grace.

Hope still flutters deep in my hollow bones.

When they unearth me, you won’t save face.

-Jackie

Sacred

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

My Brothers

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

The Moon

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

Beast In Sheep’s Clothing

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

Beyond Repair

Photo by Mario A. Villeda

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

Bed Rot

Shadow of a person wearing a crown
Photo by Kristal Tereziu

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

Insomniac

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