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Hard Landing
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A scattering of force
lapping up voices from street corners,
subway cars, seagull songs, using them as your own.
The flowerheads drop, dried in a jar.
You abandoned me,
once my shell had cracked and
my doom became inevitable.
You could have offered glue,
as there was a tiny tube on hand, in your hand, enough
to repair and prevent further damage.
But you turned your back, flaunted fake superiority,
based upon the good fortune of your stars and privilege.
Not the love of unconditional calm,
joining with joy and determination my plight with your own.
Your darkness reigns silent,
no space for whistling or pleading or singing.
Wave upon relentless wave caught the fish
and shoved it ashore. The tide receded,
the skin scales became brittle
with the rising light of the sun.
Cat paws over lidless eyes, teeth digging
deep into fishy fleshy sinews.
Broken, it is broken, my body, our bond
of guilt, shaming and shame. Love
I have felt as a beautiful pressure within
– a mother’s strength of overcoming, and when
unable to overcome, kneeling until the miracle unfolds.
Your darkness latches itself to the upside-down illusion,
takes its breath and being from inversion, a lie
deep as your self-righteousness. Never come here again.
I seal my skin. I have this last straw, lack-of-pulse nothingness,
phone calls of perpetual chatter,
deliberately avoiding the wound and methods of healing.
I deserve healing, debts forgiven, a future worth
upholding. I will not give up to the titling of the tree, but
pitch high, bypass your acts of conditional charity.
I love you, but the link that bonded me, broken
under your power, bonds me no longer. I love you,
and the honey flows, my windows are clean,
my heart has evolved, this way, orphaned.
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© 2018 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
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Published in “Outlaw Poetry” March 2018
https://outlawpoetry.com/category/allison-grayhurst/
https://outlawpoetry.com/2018/hard-landing-by-allison-grayhurst/
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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