I never could make sense out of my own heart. The way it hurts
like it was broken in the womb, and I reach for everything like
an umbilical cord. I wonder about the moment when this life became
too bright for the battlefield behind my eyes. I close them, thinking
maybe I can spare someone from this empty cannon in my chest
that is still smoking. Nobody wants to walk through this ash that
is still burning in my mouth from all the words I was too cowardly
to speak, because those words were filled with too many sorrys.
It gets cold when you force yourself to lie down in a unmade bed
of your own silence and that silence always was as messy as the
noise of what you never said anyway. I want to plan a sleep over
with my own heart to see how long it takes before I realize,
I stopped laughing so long ago. I can’t even recognize the sound
of my own sob anymore. My chest became a cradle of poems that
will not stop talking and no one hears me at night when the weight
of that heaviness spills out from my heart, rocking itself back and
forth, hard enough to take me away to a place where I can remember
what all this is for. And if I make it there one day, maybe I’ll make
sense to myself. Maybe my heart won’t shy away when someone tries
to window shop in my eyes, maybe where I’m going, is a place where
I don’t look for the flowers, because the flowers are looking for me.
A place where I can be honest without having a label slapped across
my face that says I need to cheer up. Because I’ll cheer up when
the beauty of this world stops lying through its crooked teeth and
actually proves to be skin deep. I never did fit in the shallow places.
Give my heart its own zip code, where I never have to photo shop
my own thoughts before I turn them into the words that always
seem to leave their pretty at my last known address.
© Stephanie Bennett-Henry 2016
Stephanie is a Southern Girl through and through. Sweet as candy, sharp as a blade, and talented beyond measure, Stephanie’s poetry is raw, unfiltered, and unforgettable. You can find her exquisite words at Stephanie Bennett-Henry, on Instagram, and on her website.
There is an alchemy in transmuting such pain into such beauty.
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Stephanie is always worth reading and feeling.
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Harrowing and beautiful 🙂
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Reblogged this on PoetryofSL.
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