Unmade Bed – Stephanie Bennett-Henry

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 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.