She Loves Herself, She Does Not Like Herself
Sometimes she is not broken
Just shrinking
Picture frame sized piece of what we all are asking for
Dead flowers are saved and pressed
For their gothic charm
Because wilting is beautiful
Like how sad poems are beautiful
And so the world has pressed her thin between the pages of its book
You can be lost and still know exactly where you are going
If you look at a dancers feet outside of their shoes they are bloodied and calloused. They have been broken so many times that they can now make the most sensational art. You can not paint with a hard brush, you must make the foot malleable to dance, why does it feel like all things must crack open to before they can be beautiful?
My sweet girl, I’m sorry you were not all that you wanted to be
But in that process aren’t you more than you ever wanted to be
Shattered Dishes
Fingers drum on the kitchen counter top
Like a court stenographer at a sentencing hearing
Waiting for the verdict.
Our differences have gotten so much louder recently
And I don’t know when it started or why
But at a glacial pace and explosion took place
And now here we are standing in the kitchen
Wondering who broke all these dishes.
I’m sorry the ashes from my father came out of my mouth again
Sometimes they just burn my throat so bad
That I have no choice but to spit them out.
And I’m sorry you keep asking me for love letters
Even though you know I haven’t bought pencils in years.
I’m sorry for the constant phone calls and then for the lack of calls
I’m sorry for October
And I’m sorry I’m sorry for that.
I’m sorry our bed and the couch isn’t closer
And I’m sorry you constantly feel like my hands
Are a gun at your back.
I swear I don’t mean it
They do that on their own while I’m trying to hold you
Everything turns harder over time
Everything turns metal
And this iron tastes a lot like blood in our mouths
And the blood always reminds me that out of everyone in this room
You and I aren’t actually family
We are simply two people bound by metal
Handcuffs, guns, rings, locks and keys
It just depends on the day
And so we say we’re sorry by putting
New milk in the fridge
By putting a new text in our phones
By putting our children first and ourselves second
Until they go to sleep and we can’t hide from the fact anymore that
Someone shattered the dishes
And I don’t think it was me
But you don’t either
And neither one of us wants to clean them up
Maybe it’s because we’re too tired
Or maybe it’s because we don’t want to take the blame
But the dishes just sit there and wait to be picked up
And neither of us move.
We go to bed
We leave the mess
We wake up hoping it will be gone in the morning.
But as I stumble by to make my coffee
I catch my knee on one of the shards sharp edges
And blame you for the blood.
I notice you cut your hand on one of the dishes too.
I’m sorry for that.
And I’m sorry for the dishes
And I see in your eyes that you are too
But we still can’t clean them up
Because some things are just too sharp to touch.
∞
Colie Smigliani is a 21 year old Chicago theatre student. Poetry was always her way of expressing herself and saving moments in time forever in her journal. She constantly finds herself trying to take the moments that leave her speechless and then writing them down.
