I see you

 

I see you laugh down

The throats of women who have seen

Hell in their husbands eyes

I hold my breath as 

You put on sheep’s clothing and call

God’s temple not good

I watch you build an

Altar for them not realizing 

You are burning yourself 

How long will the blood

Of your daughters cry out to you

From a weary earth 

How long will the wolves 

Go home with the sheep keeping them

Silent, slaughtered at home 

It keeps me up at 

Night, waiting for the sun to come

For it to be safe

To even come home

16 again

 

The bats are flying through the dusk 

Like they’re running from something 

And I am 16 again on the way home /

18 and thinking of a boy I never loved /

I am 23 and my legs stick to the seat

The seasons come and go and bring up old aches 

They never go away but sometimes they’re closer to the surface 

As the indigo night reaches out towards the setting sun 

Always a hand’s breadth too late

I run my feet through the wet grass 

I am 7 and I am in love

With the earth and all it offers of itself to me

Year after year

Who could’ve dreamt of such a thing? 

running out

Does one ever run out of things to write about?

There are not so many things in my life

There are small things

The quiet of the lake when I go by myself

There are the loud car rides with my sister when we sing

There are the evenings when I sit on our bed and listen to his music

There are all the smiley faces I draw in the margins

There is the library, my bangs blowing in my face, that cloud,

These boots, and the hum of my tires on the road before dusk

There is this skin spread like butter over this muscle and bones

There are the back rubs and hot and cold showers and, always, there are the dishes

It is a small thing, this life

It is a symphony of significance 

Mostly not like a symphony at all

I sometimes wonder if I will–

Run out of things to write about

If you will get bored of me

And my small things

If so, I do not mind

I have these arms around me 

This skin and bones for now

To soak up the sun

These hands for working

And resting and sowing 

Love like a garden

I have the dirt and the sky and the sun

All around me

I have a laughter all my own and my painted chipped nails

and I do not mind at all

I have someone(s) who will still love me

Without my poetry

And isn't that a kind of poetry

All on it's own?

— olivia gwyn