don't die press

A Throwback Thursday piece by Yvonne Jayne, originally published July 2014.

I am shaped by her thought of me,
I am named in her dreams,
Baptized by her vision of me
And born into her likeness.

I am shattered by her disappointments
I cry for her lost life,
I fall in her vacuum and
I flail in her failures.

I am driven by her dreams,
I am powered by her regrets,
She is capsized by the curse
Of her marriage to a madman.

I am rocked by his rages
Storms in the long night,
His genius beats against his bars
I am shattered by his disappointments.

I am unsteady, rising to the sun,
I am called in visions
To express what is sinking,
Back to the core of me again.

I am unheard in my expression
Struggling to have a voice,
I am told to stop being dramatic
And make obedience my choice.

I am shattered by their disappointments
Drowning in their struggles,
Each is the enemy of the other
Storms in the long night.

This Throwback Thursday brought to you by Freesia McKee
S/tick, Issue 1.4

this guy brought a poem
to our workshop
about being a man.
they called
his poem
“bukowskian.”

almost everyone
at the table
loved it.

after the workshop,
one guy told me
to write a poem
that included the word
“cunt.”

he knows i write
poems about women.
what else is there
to say?

“bukowskian.”

do you get asked
what it feels like
to be a symbol
for something?

i’m writing
because to me,
you have become
a currency:
i know how included i can feel
if i quote you.
the cost
is that my chair
gets pulled
too close
to their table–
that is a poem
that will never be
bukowskian.

This Throwback Thursday brought to you by Amber Hollinger
S/tick, Issue 1.2