Mirror on the wall, whose face lies behind this mask? What doll, what cracked porcelain pride, dares ask after her now-lost youth? What etheric rot rises like exhaust into air from raw, open graves, smacking the blue sky, lacking filters for free breath — does vanity hold any cell…in this hell? She shall count her…
Once I had a heart, but life stole it away. The stress of spending seconds counting sighs down to abyssal eyes — peace, a waste of time. I used to be a dreamer, but shame came of desire, clouding all my visions until the stratus sky suffocated my lies overhead and inside. "Serve, serve, serve!"…
I am the goddess left alive, daughter of Cronus tortured by hardened hands because he could. Rhea saved her son. Couldn't bother with me. I had to wait for Zeus to grow up and save first our swallowed siblings. Those years were an eternity. An eternity of cheeks torn shiny red raw from calloused flesh arrows. An eternity of lying…
Crickets play in my head trilling see see see see me me me me seem seem seem seem louder and louder they sound see see see see me me me me seem seem seem seem “Seem what? Seem what?” I shriek. A katydid answers in the pause — in love with me in love with…
TW: suicide Mama, Dada: every baby’s first words more than mumbles. Mommy, Daddy: the naïve child sounding sweet to say love and sway pity. Mom, D — no, not Dad. Never Dad. I never reached that stage, for you ran to the edge and crashed headfirst into the silent seats when everyone had emptied out…
My mother was a bird long of neck, wading in slate waters and afraid to fly a gray choking sky peppered with cracking snaps shot off by a Browning Gold 10. Those wingless aliens had no home in the wood, appeared in deafening shells no hermit crab could conceive, and wielded such branches that splintered,…
Snow skin, pink cheeks, smooth brow, brown peeps, blue lips, chiseled teeth, black tongue, banshee shrieks, rough palms, tiptoe creep, needle claws, lack of sleep. Her life is lovely, dark, and deep: a storybook lie so no one sees spread spider-veins, stained memories — the blood-red soul she should not keep. AUGUST 2022 UPDATE: Obviously,…
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Saralyn Caine Poetry 