The Lightning Girl

NaPo, take 2. Going for a poem per day for 30 days. Let's see if I can do it, or if I revert to horrible couplets five days in.

Also, all comments and feedback are very, very welcome! <3

Spoiler

Part One
1. Stay Safe
2. Thirty Minutes Forty Miles
3. The Lion
4. Furyscape
5. The Tuesday Special
6. Color TV
7. Invasive Medicine
8. Cottonmouth Girl
9. Null and Void
10. The Dragon

Part Two
1. Quarter Rest
2. The Name of God
3. She Suffered
4. Temper, Temper
5. Trust No One
6. Be My Valentine
7. The Child
8. One Way
9. The Star Maker
10. Deneb

Part Three
1. Dead Things
2. Traffic Jam
3. Ferric Oxide
4. Sunburn
5. Redbird Girl
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

stay safe

the doctors tugged every corner of you taut over a frame of bone
and clawed at the fishhooks stuck through your skin
like you hadn't clawed a hundred times before

clawed like hell,
with fingernails ragged as your breath
ragged as the grass where the butterflies flock
and you unfolded like so many wings
in a barrage of vivid color that killed the mind

they tried to catch the savage beast and teach it language
but it was too late for you, too late to save
the passage of time so clearly marked

like fate you would've said
with a laugh, hell, with a grin
but bitten-off nails only do you so much good
and ragged grass is chopped off to the root
and butterflies only live for a season

like fate—you would've said.

thirty minutes forty miles

you announce yourself
with a creak of denim against hot leather—
sup?—
and sink into the seat.

yo, so can i...?
that's my drink you're reaching for,
your morning pill couched in your hand.

sure, go ahead.
like I haven't been sitting here for an hour
waiting on you to get out of bed.

but you won't take pills dry
and you won't set alarms
but you'll step up on your pedestal
and weep tears of joy for the survivors

but you'll step up on your crumbling pillar
and weep tears of blood for the tumble you'll take

so, uh—
like you don't have words to say.

we're just as broken, you and I, but any crack on you
is filled with sterling silver
molded to your shape, to your
explicit needs
to what you
want

my fingers clench around the steering wheel
with a creak of anger against worn resin—
just let me drive—
and I do my best to disappear on the horizon.

the lion

my skin is coated in interrupted fingerprints

places where they touched me
to see if i was real then
backed off, fearful
i would bite

fearful i would fracture
their world into shards
and use it for my sword
after all

fragments are stronger than the whole;
who can shatter a grain of sand?

furyscape

you thought i'd be perfect.

i don't have words for how betrayed i am
that anyone would ever think that of me
how i eschew perfection
that anyone would ever ascribe that to me

sick to my stomach with how dare you
built up like water behind a dam
all i have to do is open the floodgates

how dare you
how dare i let you down
and get myself caught in this trap

a violent concoction of guilt and fury
fills my head to the brim
until all i can breathe is bile and fear
drowning everything for the sake
of melodrama

all because i will never be perfect

and i damn well never claimed to be.

the tuesday special

Somewhere in the wood grain of this Cracker Barrel,
everything took root---everything I am
and that I have been---and it grew
and leafed out, reaching for the sun.

In the click of plastic checkers pieces---king me!---
in the creak of wooden rocking chairs
and the patient whirr of weasel balls
waiting to be unlocked and killed for joy---

in the fear of meeting old faces again,
the exasperation of buttermilk biscuits that
sometimes taste like ash and sometimes like heaven---

in constant sales and Yankee Candle and ads for
cigarettes and Coca-Cola hand in hand,
the sound of falling glass before it hits the ground,
oil lamps and jumping games and conversations accidentally overheard---

these are the places I live.

color tv

silver-plated memories
are the least grating against my skin—
at least they don't eat away at me
like the others do. they're gentle,
curling me away for future reference
in a world too harsh for me to think.

but every time they're worn
the plating rubs off against my hands
coloring me a little more silver
and them a little more nickel
until the wounds are torn open again;
then for all my protests I become

everything I hate so violently
I'd throw it against the wall
but I know it would stick with
teeth torn from the jaw of a coral snake
digging downwards and inwards
and back against the grain,

filling me with venom I never knew
my system could take so readily
that I can spit it right back out at
bull's eyes drawn on smiling faces;
I become the monster in the darkness,
red eyes through windowpanes like

streetlights blinking out one by one
and fingernails clawed into bed sheets
ripping away at the only shield between
them and the night, and the monster,
and me; I become the unknown,
the uncategorized, the unorganized,

drifting in a limbo of my own creation,
of laugh tracks pointed at the rawest nerve
of barbs sticking through my skin so sharp
I could forget this was soothing once,
that it was my protection before
I became this hell—and damn,

it's cold as silence here, and damn,
it's bright as silver.

invasive medicine

she took root as a camphor tree in my heart
all healing no poison and a promise of tomorrow
her smooth bark soothing as she pressed her hand
against my aching soul and whispered sleep

she grew tall and broad on my vitality
not leeching but adding essentials that I lacked
the soil at her roots thrived on dying leaves
and I drew in all my tender limbs to seek her nutrition

her canopy was my much-needed rest from the violence
of a humid chest a broken voice and shaking lungs
I clung to her trunk with the insistence of a child
refused to take a step away for fear I would fall over

I scraped my knee against the ground once
on a rock that threw itself against my skin
and my camphor tree kissed it better with the fervor
of one who can't stand to see someone hurting

she told me she didn't belong here with me
she shouldn't have rested under these summer skies
she came from far away and long ago and I said
it didn't matter where she was from but where she was

but all too soon they came with saws to cut her down
and I curled myself tight around her and begged
leave her be let her grow but they took her away
in bits and pieces letting smooth leaves fall

my soil crumbled and my sun grew hot and
my chest collapsed in the storm of the century
without my camphor tree without the soothing cold
without the shade and sorrow and promises

without her who am I—
without her, who am I?

cottonmouth girl

the broken girl was a water snake;
scars slashed across her throat
where they had tried to cut off her head,
and she came to me begging
let you be different
let you be kind

and i was.

the broken girl was a water snake;
she sipped daintily at what i offered
so slowly and surely it was gone,
and she came to wrap around me
I'll protect you from them
they'll kill you

and i agreed.

the broken girl was a water snake;
the mob came to my door, grim-faced
with shotguns at the ready; i blocked them,
righteousness brewing thunder in my heart
get out of my house—tell me
why her, why her?

the broken girl was a water snake;
a mistake, i argued, a lie that they
thought her venomous, thought her
dangerous enough to warrant shotguns
what's wrong with you?
answer me!

and they laughed and asked if i
didn't know a viper when i saw one.

null and void

i'm afraid of dying alone and everyone knows that but somehow that's not a comfort when they use it against me;

their beaks pierce my heart and i bind it to protect against the sharp force trauma but they've already picked out the good things and let them sit out to rot in the florida sun;

i hate the sound of running water but i couldn't tell you why;

all i know is that i'm afraid of dying alone and everyone knows that but it's the most dangerous thing in the world to share your secrets when you're like me;

all i know is that fears unlike fates unlike dreams can always come true.

the dragon

the train derailed at murphy
with a screech that shook the foundation of the 7-11.

an accident, said
one of the smokers standing nearby,
the smell of cigarettes ingrained in his skin;
a bad one,
the cashier agreed, wringing her hands
as she waited for the police to arrive.

the train derailed at murphy;
i was standing there that night,
watched the beast leap from the tracks—
for a moment it sprouted wings
and breathed its lungs full of fire.

quarter rest

Mute buttons turn me head over heels;
I've never appreciated anything as much
as a good deserved silence. It's like
a great rest after a long day spent working,
comforting you that you don't need to
let their serrated-edged voices mingle
with the sharp duo-tone of a doorbell or
the black guttural engine growl of life—
there is a silence, they say, and it's
only fair to let you enjoy it once in a while.

the name of god

breaking news:
five car pileup on the carlin bridge;
a truck transporting a candied red Ferrari
swerved too far to the right
and scraped against the wall;
so far none are reported as dead;
a few in critical condition are
being transported to the nearest hospital;
the Ferrari was unharmed.

I've been reading your lovely poetry since the start of Napo and I've been enjoying everything I've read. I just wanted to comment on the lion. That last stanza about the fragment being stronger than the whole and who can shatter a grain of sand? One word: whoa. That was sheer genius and I just had to let you know although I am sure you do. Thanks for sharing your amazing poetry!

@bluewaterlily Thank you very much! I'm mostly glad I made it this far, haha ^^ I'm a few days past where I made it last year.