Onstage

The light I turned to was artificial.

            There were drums

and you called me the devil but that’s OK

because for just a second, I didn’t have to be me anymore.

I got to be someone else with other problems

            that I didn’t have to deal with.

I got to be free.

I was allowed to get drunk on my words

            without fear for who was watching.

I didn’t have to think about disappointing you

            because onstage, you don’t exist.

There’s a whole other world that you don’t know about

            and I call it Rehearsal.

Everyday from three to five, I get murdered then come back as a ghost,

            I murder kids, I get betrayed,

I watch a bloody play unfold every day and I would’ve been corrupted,

            but I stopped confusing one story for all stories.

Out here the only black and white belongs in the script:

            no hero, no villain, just words and acting.

Onstage, success means to fail better.

So, if you can't handle the drama,

            get off the stage;

Leave it to the people who know

            that Commedia del Arte means Professional Actors,

                        not Comedy of the Arts.

Leave it to the people who can list off Greek gods and Shakespeare plays;

Leave it to the people who have heard the Origins of Western Drama 

            more times than a kid has heard a bedtime story-

Leave it to the people who are brave enough to rip out their hearts

            and hold it out for you to beat with a stick

                        because onstage, we are trying to find something beautiful.

So, the next time you see me onstage,

            look really close,

because this is what I look like without all the walls and barriers:

This is who I am.

Look past the characters and the plot,

look past the fact that Tyrell kills two innocent children

            and just watch the way she walks.

Look at how she holds herself:

            how she leans back,

            how when she smiles

                        the tip of her tongue taps her top teeth.

Watch the way she bows before King Richard:

            she loves to be big and grandiose.

She speaks slowly,    

savoring the words because she loves the way they sound.

This character, Tyrell can be cut seamlessly from the play.

            You can turn out the lights on the two scenes she has,

but between her lines, backstage between scenes, and during intermission when I was still changing costumes,

            I wrote her a backstory.

The lights always come up on character who was somebody’s daughter.

The ability to cry onstage isn’t the mark of a good actress;

            It doesn’t mean we’ve been possessed by the devil.

We just found ourselves in the character

            and we cry because, in context, we are sad.

Acting is not a career,

            it is not art or a message.

We are not humans telling humans how to be human.

            We just want to tell you a story.

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I really like where this is headed, but I feel like it needs refinement. I'm just not sure where... I feel like cutting from: "So the next time you see me onstage" all the way to "Savoring the words because she loves the way they sound".

Five Minutes to Midnight

They come at night by storm.

When streets are gone

and the blanket of ash grows taller,

            they stand at the horizon.

First one,

            then two,

and ten become twenty

            when light casts their shadows into fire.

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So... thoughts? I'd like to add this to the fairy-tale collection because I find it fairy-ly-ish. 

The Ghost

There is a ghost I once called family.
It stares at my with crooked eyes

from where it sleeps

on wet towels in the garage.

It says “I thought you loved me - -“

I tell it “I do”

My ghost is rabid and feral.

The portions of my childhood I feed it are not enough.

It wants my soul.

It pecks away at my liver and the thing that I call freedom.

It devours me.

My ghost sings me lullabies. 

It holds me in its lap as I wither up;

as I fade away 

becoming nothing more the echoes of a voice crying out:

"I thought you loved me - - "

------------------------------

So I was wondering if I should keep the last stanza or not. Because I really like it, but I also think that I could just leave it at: It devours me. What do you think?

Everything is the same in the dark.

I don’t recognize my shadow anymore.

He says he remembers me, but I think he might be lying.

I think I would remember him, too.

It’s not like my shadow should ever leave me.

Well, except in the dark.

Maybe he went away, and this new shadow came.

Maybe my real shadow is locked up someplace

where he is bound and gagged, nebulous in the dark

and he is the same as everything.

The Evolution of Flowers

There was a time when flower crowns ruled
The feeble wanton world. Back then, I
Did not understand that
Sticks and stones would break my bones and
Words could be used to hurt me. Thoughts were
Pure and river sprung, like a new spring in water who
Does not think ahead to the journey down the
Mountainside, who must learn to flow around the bone breaking rocks
And sweep away the self same sticks who snap and break both
Selves and ourselves, they did not know of
The journey. They knew of the beginning.
And perhaps the ocean's end.
Thorns were always come by, with the
Flowers who didn't want picking, it was a way of
Weak but defense, and we
Pricked upon our captors but it
Did not suffice. Plucked from home our plot twist began and
We became like the river. Lily pads have flowers, too big and
Perhaps considered ugly to some and they
Learned how to float on us and remain
Unharmed
And we the river envied them and
We the river flowed on.
Blossoms in blue is what shade I sprung among
Reds violets pinks of vermilion-esk hue. Discontent roamer was
I but no aid for the ugly from the weak and the weak are
Stronger than the wishes of lily pads.
I used to wonder on stars and see golden reflection in
The rest but blue hues do not stand for stars, reds
Soaked in the sunshine, the violets the shadows and the pinks the lips of
Drowned. The blues were left with hints of dreams and Mami's
Apron, Tati's lashes.
Blues were made for statues greened with
Moss, abandoned empty from the
Start, filler required but none inside so we remain the empty husks of
Bygone selves we can't remove
Past wars painted with reds and blues but blues
Remain the understated
Uninterpreted unimagined
Stallions untamed in their spirit because they had no goal not a whit to start they
Never understood to make it through the steel all
Painted black they had to
Push past sticks and broken bones made
Strewn from strings of words without sympathy or thought, a
Heart attack of long lost bees and stolen pollen
Would halt their tracks along the swollen
Aid
So now
No more are
Flower crowns
Rewarded.

_____________________________

Ta-da
I wrote a thing
What do you think about my thing?

Violins

I constructed a grave for the might-have-been.

I buried down the dreams it could have had.

I patted the earth flat where its skin could have sat.

The green, green grass curled between my toes was something of splendor.

I think it was a storybook ending. It was all I could’ve asked for.

When I was your girl, when we ate breakfast together,

when we had sing-alongs in your car, when harps sounded more like heaven

and less like love songs that didn’t come to be,

we were the blue pinstriped suit and navy ball gown.

We were on patrol for people to smile at while

we swung our hands between our hips.

Today, I planted new violins beside the headstone.

I made the ground even and hid the tears beneath the concrete.

I brushed away the imprints I made with my knees and swept away my footsteps.

Dear God,

When I get better, I expect him to be at my door

with a bouquet of purple flowers. Please not roses.

Dear God,

There’s no pressure. I know he’s a lie. But I ask anyway.

Dear God,

Don’t forget to place a flower with black wrapped around it

on every other Thursday on our grave.

I don’t want to forget.

I saw your sister at Church last week and didn’t smile at her.

Does that make me a horrible person?

I wanted so badly to say something, but I’m giving up on you.

There aren’t even metaphors to give you now.

I actually had a letter in my pocket, tickled with frilly words

and peppermint paper. I clenched it in my fingers

to give to her before I dropped it in the trash.

Would you read it anyway?

When will this stop hurting?

I visited our grave again today.

Sometimes, when I sleep, I walk down the stairs

and hug the couch pillows.

I wake up on top of wet cloth and soaking cheeks.

But I don’t cry for you.

Today, I plucked each violin and listened to the major and minor ‘C’.

They sounded too much like apologies, so I ripped them out by the roots.

Empty holes lie beside our forgiven words:

 “Here lies the ones who could’ve been, who should’ve been,

but who aren’t.”

To tell you the truth, I don’t miss the greenery—

only the ghostly notes between each single string.

Funny, that’s what I sound like anyway.

**I wrote this in about 10 minutes... I was listening to sad songs and reading other poetry and suddenly this crossed my mind. Be brutal--I like the concepts that this poem speaks of but I don't think it's quite there yet, you know? Thanks all!