Submissions by EllyV

I am not a morning person.

Not in reluctance of a new horizon,

But in defeat

For in the waking world, I find

again, I've lost

Surrendered a third of my time to unwholesome unconsciousness.



I'm a human.

Unique--

like everyone else.

In that, I'm ashamed of this poem.

An injustice.

A loss.

That little white lies that grabs and twists.

For no person can say they know themselves whist telling the

truth.



I'm a singer

but I'll never sing...

I met you

in my closet, lost, forgot, and stuffed away

like skeletons tend to be.

You looked up with plaster face

and proved that you had nothing to hide

under think, deceitful fat.

No reason to lie about your bony build.

You were the first I'd ever seen

without even sheet-thin skin to

wrap you in a stupid story.

Being cloaked in flesh

suddenly felt like being naked.



I scrutinized safely from the doorway.

I became an anatomist.

I learned your...

To keep me from spilling,
the world set a cork in my mouth
and they called it “common decency.”

But now that I’ve shut myself up,
I can’t get me back out.
Every night, my fingers tug. They make
little microruptures in themselves
before they sigh
and I set me back on the shelf,
packaged and bottled up.
Here,
lying in my bed of dust,
I’m another “masterpiece” mass-produced
by somebody else with a plug.

One afternoon
when I was solemn and brooding and needed a drink,
I pulled too hard,
splashing and fizzing everywhere,...

I will rationalize
(because that’s all that this writer can do)
that with every impression,
every strange, nostalgic touch,
each tick of your cogs in my ear,
and every new way this flaw escapes
and finds its way onto my mouth,
your mouth,
your skin,
that we become more and more like words--
stumbling, awkwardly falling together again and again
driven by a higher need to piece together
something beautiful.

At last, the story of us is written.