Submissions by renemarzuk
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
You Never Saw Me
I tried staring at you in class while the teacher wasn’t looking. I slid a note in your backpack and the next day I brushed my hair and wore my best dress. I tried smiling at you until my face hurt, and when we met afterwards, I tried to be perfect. To say the right words. To kiss you on the cheek before you left.
I tried writing your name a thousand times with a piece of chalk so that my hand could never forget it. I tried making a drawing of you and me with hearts all over. When I learned how to write, I wrote you poems. When I learned about life, I tried with sex.
I...
I tried writing your name a thousand times with a piece of chalk so that my hand could never forget it. I tried making a drawing of you and me with hearts all over. When I learned how to write, I wrote you poems. When I learned about life, I tried with sex.
I...
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The Pieces of Me
From the other side of the room, my eyes stare blankly at me. They watch me from my son’s face. One of my daughters caresses me in an attempt to conjure the pain away, and her hands feel exactly like mine. I turn my head to the sound of my own voice coming out from the youngest of my grandchildren.
When I look at them all I see are the pieces of myself. I feel as if someone had broken me down and distributed my fragments unevenly among these people. I would try to make sense out of chaos and put them back together, but I can barely move. I can’t just get up and rebuild myself once...
When I look at them all I see are the pieces of myself. I feel as if someone had broken me down and distributed my fragments unevenly among these people. I would try to make sense out of chaos and put them back together, but I can barely move. I can’t just get up and rebuild myself once...
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Untitled
And again
Every time
When the parents get out of sight
When they look out the window
Or answer their phones
Or go to the restroom
Or get distracted talking to each other
The clown interrupts his routine
And stares at the children
Without moving a muscle
Without blinking
Without breathing
With the saddest face
Every time
When the parents get out of sight
When they look out the window
Or answer their phones
Or go to the restroom
Or get distracted talking to each other
The clown interrupts his routine
And stares at the children
Without moving a muscle
Without blinking
Without breathing
With the saddest face
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If You Wanted It
If you wanted it, you could run away with my life. You could put it in your backpack, side by side with your bottled water, and go for one of your long walks. Actually, you could say you were going for a walk and go for a long trip instead, travel to a different city, disappear in a different culture, lose your voice in a different language. You could devise a careful plan, lay out your thoughts and strategy on ruled notebooks kept in drawers you have never seen me open. At night, while I sleep, you could look at my life and stare at its flame for hours, anticipating the day when you will run...
585 reads
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Forgive Me
I pressed hard and squeezed until it hurt but you never said a word you didn’t want to be the one to say the first word you wanted to show me you were strong and I squeezed because I wanted to show you you weren't that strong just stupid and I got mad because I wanted to teach you a lesson about life but there was never a word never a complaint and I kept squeezing and you acted like nothing you even smiled until you couldn't take it anymore and afterwards I couldn't stop crying I cried for days weeks years I'm still crying I was so wrong
629 reads
3 Comments
Oceanic
Follow the movement of the water back and forth. The ocean kisses your feet, but you must remain aware and guard yourself from his love. Left to its own devices, his passion could kill you.
In all his magnificence, the ocean can not understand love. How can I love something that moves and is its own person even when I'm not looking? How can I love something that exists beyond me? Questions of this sort make him angry and confused. I must possess, he repeats to himself, I must possess.
Beware of the ocean, and love him from a distance. Watch his desire grow, but never try to...
In all his magnificence, the ocean can not understand love. How can I love something that moves and is its own person even when I'm not looking? How can I love something that exists beyond me? Questions of this sort make him angry and confused. I must possess, he repeats to himself, I must possess.
Beware of the ocean, and love him from a distance. Watch his desire grow, but never try to...
655 reads
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...
You are a bird. You can fly and see everything from above. Roam the skies and bring me back one evidence of love; then I will leave the Ark. If you don't find anything, don't come back. I will bury myself here. And all the animals with me.
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But I digress
When I think of blood I think of the subterranean rivers running within us, and of the secret streams filling us with life. I think red as in liquid roses, red as in liquid bouquets. I see China dolls seated around a fake tea table with crimson circles stamped on their cheeks. They are perfectly unmoved by the rivers. It is always teatime for them. And I think we the human waves, rushing in and out, stumbling back and forth, hesitating all the time, and feeling uncontrollably attracted not towards the Sun, which is the source of all life, but towards the Moon, which is weaker and has eight...
722 reads
4 Comments
I Get It Now
I get it now, Mother.
That you were born with a fate.
That long before you could decide for yourself, Life had been attached to you like a parasite.
That you came to this world as an unknowing goddess.
I get it: The future had been written in your blood, and you were just another one in a long row of women who had received an excessive gift.
"I want to be free!”, you screamed where everybody could hear you, just before running away. You went out seeking for freedom, which looked a lot like pleasure, and Life tagged along, silently. You found a man who numbed your...
That you were born with a fate.
That long before you could decide for yourself, Life had been attached to you like a parasite.
That you came to this world as an unknowing goddess.
I get it: The future had been written in your blood, and you were just another one in a long row of women who had received an excessive gift.
"I want to be free!”, you screamed where everybody could hear you, just before running away. You went out seeking for freedom, which looked a lot like pleasure, and Life tagged along, silently. You found a man who numbed your...
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Freedom
Perspective eludes me.
My thoughts fly away in an irregular flock. I wave from a balcony even though they never look back, but I do it more for myself, because they all carry a piece of home in their beaks. Some of them will never return.
Come back to me; I kept on waiting in the alley so you could find your closure. I waited for you to make yourself complete partially because I didn't want to be blamed, but mainly because I didn't want to hold your horses, I wanted them to run as free as my birds fly. The gift of freedom.
My thoughts fly away in an irregular flock. I wave from a balcony even though they never look back, but I do it more for myself, because they all carry a piece of home in their beaks. Some of them will never return.
Come back to me; I kept on waiting in the alley so you could find your closure. I waited for you to make yourself complete partially because I didn't want to be blamed, but mainly because I didn't want to hold your horses, I wanted them to run as free as my birds fly. The gift of freedom.
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Hardly
It is not your fault: I made you think I was your horse. I gave you a sense of ownership that flattered you. You wanted something to protect, and I complied. Maybe I should have stopped you then... I take the blame. I don't belong to anyone, and the truth is sometimes I don't even belong to myself, sometimes I wake up in strange places, accompanied by people I have never seen before, and I wonder what, where, when, why... while that which really owns breaks down in laughter. I'm hardly yours if I'm hardly mine.
660 reads
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They Say
and they say
keep on walking
there is nothing more
than forward and forward
ahead and ahead
but no
there is also right here
right now
not going anywhere
but losing oneself
in the illusion of a color
within your eyes
keep on walking
there is nothing more
than forward and forward
ahead and ahead
but no
there is also right here
right now
not going anywhere
but losing oneself
in the illusion of a color
within your eyes
592 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by renemarzuk