Betrayal- assignment 6

For this assignment we had to let the title give meaning to/set the tone of the poem.  Most of the class didn't really understand mine. Key words/Phrases were: drift away, your hand grows limp in mine (meaning letting me go), fleeing, fleeting, fade


Betrayal
Laying in the crisp green grass
Watching fireflies drift away
to a place I do not know.
As your hand grows limp in mine while you fall asleep.
The dark sapphire sky has seldom wispy dark grey clouds.
I can see stars forming constellations stretching far and wide.
The names of which escape my mind.
In the distance a stray shooting star seems to be fleeing.
Fleeting into the abysmal sky.
An hour, or two, or three goes by before
The sky, stars, and moon all begin to fade.

The Things You've Missed

You missed my first day of elementary school, middle school, high school, and college.
You missed my 8th grade talent show.
Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Starting Somethin,"
I choreographed the whole thing myself.
You missed every play and musical I was in.
You missed every field hockey game and track meet I had.
You never saw the article in the paper about the time I made the save that qualified our team for the state champion chip.
You missed my graduations.
You missed every medal, trophy, and award I've ever gotten
and every single time I have ever felt proud.
You missed it when I got dehydrated at field hockey camp and needed to be picked up.
You missed every birthday after the age of three.
You never danced a father daughter dance with me.
You never took me to work with you on take your child to work day.
You never spent a Father's day with me.
You never taught me how to ride a bike.
You never read me bedtime stories about princesses in far away lands or tucked me into a pink flowery bed.
You missed my first time on the road.
You missed my first car accident.
You missed the time I fell down the stairs and really messed up my foot.
You missed my first day working and how giddy I was to be making my own money.
even if it was at Chuck E. Cheese
You missed it when I felt my first heartache.
You never told me the type of men to watch out for.
You never told me that falling in love would hurt.
You weren't there when I sat looking out the window and at every car that passed by I said, "Daddy?"
I can see you now, nursing a bottle of liquor and some crack cocaine when you could have been nursing me.
You were never my hero.
Now, when you call I don't pick up and I don't return your calls.
I don't want to talk to you.
We have nothing to talk about.
I simply don't care at all.

Daddy

January 17th 2004-

Daddy dont you love me
Daddy dont you miss me
Daddy why'd you leave me
Daddy that's not how it should be

Daddy you make me cry
Daddy please tell me why
Daddy dont you care
Daddy I wanted you there
in my life...
Daddy left me all alone
Daddy missed it when I shone
Daddy lied to me
he said, sweetie wait for me
but Daddy never showed up
Daddy left me with tears and tough luck

Daddy im messed up tonight
because youre not here
in my life...
Daddy not having you by my side
You killed a part of me and so I died
And Daddy ive been messed up since
And its too late to fix it
My childhoods gone
and I hope you know you're wrong
and Mommy could never take your place
I just wanted to hear your voice, see your face

But instead im left with an empty space
and you just left without a trace
Daddy I am cold tonight
Daddy wont you hold me tight
Daddy wont you take my hand
Daddy wont you be my friend
Daddy I know you SAY youre sorry
but Daddy thats not good enough for me
Daddy why'd you leave me there to cry
Why,why,why,why??

If She Knew-Assignment 4

For this assignment we had to use some sort of repetition


If She Knew
The clock reads 3:12am.
The light from the train peeks
through the blinds and creates shadows
against my red walls.

Like the time you had me pressed up against the front door.
I could feel the cold against my back
and your warm breath on my neck.
My hands gripped you like talons.

That night the train lights also peeked through.
I wonder what she would do if she knew?

Three fifteen.
I turn over in my zebra print comforter
to the pheromones left on my pillow.
My nightstand, besides the clock now naked
from the one thing that is ever intermittent.
The wedding band that reminds me of why you're not here now.
What would she do if she knew?

Your hair wild,untamed,and huge like a lions mane.
Your raw energy.
Unrestrained and ferocious.
Manly and take charge.
The way you looked when you were above me.
Tracing that physique
like kryptonite making me weak.
Creating mental pictures in my head
Strewn across the floor of my sleepless mind.

I wonder if you lay in bed, with my picture in your head.
Tossing and turning now it's three thirty.
I look at the cellphone beside my pillow.
And I know
I wouldn't dare call you.

But what would she do if she knew?
Because part of me would love to,
to tell your wife shattering things.
How when you take out the garbage you call me.
And remember the one night you and your buddies went out after work
you were drunk outside my apartment and your friends were telling you to turn around, that I was asleep.
Or the time you took me to the movies and held MY hand
as my fingers ran circles around that band.

But for now I'm laying here in this bed
wondering when the train shall come again.

To Dream-Assignment 2

To Dream

With every shot I hear fired in the distance
my gaze fixes on another star in the sky.
Being in Afghanistan feels like being in a radiating oven.
The terrain is nothing but barren, brown, and burnt by the sun daily.
These empty nights when I look up at the stars
my lips form your name,
While ornaments of the sky seem
fixed in their celestial blanket.

I miss the May days laying in the green Mississippi grass of our front yard
with you beside me,
your eyes more blue than the rarest sapphires.
Our fingers fit the way your favorite pair of jeans do, the ones with the tear just below the right knee.
You.
You're like a dream to me now.

The gunfire stops and there is an explosion
followed by trembling of the Earth beneath my combat boots.
This war seems never ending.
I want to come home
to you.

Were you something I dreamt?
Dreamt is the only English word that end's in the letters "mt."
Empty.
Dreamt is past tense.
It is the skeleton of hope.

Hard to Swallow- Assignment 1

For this assignment we had to recall a place, somewhere we had been and not necessarily a "nice" place.

Hard To Swallow
I am looking down
At navy blue “one size fits all” socks that are too big for my feet
with rubber for traction
and a faded light blue curtain that hangs on me.

Here I am,
not allowed to have my shoes.
My clothes.
They tell me I can't be trusted.

A man with a velcro beard lurks outside,
he stares at me.
I am sitting on a concrete slab.
The woman in my room with a dictionary thick Jamaican accent tells him "move along now."
The man saunters along the hall like a "Thriller" zombie
More begin to emerge from their graves.

They line up against the satin painted walls.
I take my place with the herd.
Everyone else has their “street clothes” but me.
I give a woman my name.
In return a little white wax paper cup with a little white round pill.


The cattle return to their cells.
We are locked in this prison
where I can not have my shoes.
At snack time everyone is eating PB & J with pints of milk
in a room filled with crayon drawings.

There is a woman sitting across from me
She looks up, points at me and says "Lucy"
Her hair a black and gray Brillo pad.
Stray strands sprouting from her chin.
Her eyes are glazed. Her smile is crooked and decaying.
She looks a few seats down and points at a young man and says "Ricky"

In the common area there is a Halloween marathon on.
The only one watching is an employee,
a man with long neat dreads
and he asks me what I am doing here.
I could only shrug.

This place is the hole and decay of an apple
and I can not even have my shoes.

White Walled

A soft buzzing is heard from the ceiling lights above her
The tile is cold pressed beneath her.
Scratching at her chest, clawing, scratching, digging at her chest
redness skin bleeding exposing her ribs
breaking them snapping them
opening them wide.
her heart pumping wildly she tears it out and hurls it at the white tiled wall
the tile smashes into pieces on impact.
tears streaming down her face in frustration, agony.
she looks down at her empty chest sobbing.
hands covered in blood. skin under her nails.
she screams.
her body falls back to the checkered white and black tile.
this place is familiar.
body motionless except a few twitches in a finger or two.
eyes open.
unfocused on the bright white flickering ceiling light.