Reclamation

Poet: Stacie Primeaux

I once found myself lost

blizzard beaten

looking back

and recalling you differently now that I know how the story ended

that smirk a few years back, now

looks unreliable

 

home debased into crime scene

 

I find myself nauseous and heavy headed driving through trunks of lightening

Stems of glow that brighten the closet corners

And I miss my turn

 

I stumble around the new place

barging into rooms without a point to make

And slip out embarrassed

To pace another

treading patterns into my hutch

 

I find myself cursing love songs

Jealously growling back at my hunger

And averse to say I once loved like the villain’s dog

Full on scraps

Heeling

And killing the hero for you

 

your name smells of hollow dust wind

 

And just as I learn which light switch goes to what I am sent packing again

Discarding pictures of your mother and stock piling cardboard boxes

And you

Are egging me on

Nudging me out

And I am regrouping

Tying up the children my arms a pink bow

We are posted a modest parcel

 

I find myself wading around the edges of sleep looking for commiseration as elusive as loch ness

Catching myself still aroused at the thought of your sinful gaze or the silhouette of your shoulders swaying above me

And I say that it is only because I want to make love in general

I say that if you were standing at my bedroom door I would still withhold myself from the stranger you’ve become

I am arresting myself, confiscating moans before they escape my borders

 

I find myself attempting to sweep statues out my door muttering

I can loosen the stubborn honey jar lid

I can reach the stupid hammer on the top shelf

And I      can kill      a cockroach

 

I find myself fumbling the children in my pockets like river stones, carrying them across bridges shrouded in the merciful haze of their youth

And hoping that years from now they will remember

Nothing

But my face

Adamant

Close

Strong

 

I find myself laughing at the top of my voice

Wildly giggling to engorge the silence that now evades the space you left

I suck in quiet and spit out gun shot shower

Fitful against the control you once had

 

I am filling this pit with hummingbirds and warm bread and cello thump

 

I find myself waking

Twitching out of the ice

Dredging up

Braiding into

 

I find myself pulling feathers from behind the ears

I find myself still ragged with love

Still flinging my grin

Skipping glances over the crowds

Rolling miles across my pillows and landing in languor

 

I find myself

Plucked from junk drawers

I dust off

I unfold my fists and smooth them out

Where maps to my resolution have been concealed

 

I find myself resurfacing

I find myself still captivating and unscathed

I find my self wound taught

Self-taught

 

I

find

my

self

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