We’re at a standstill—
a standoff of semi-automatic emotion, knowing
in our instability, we pull each other’s triggers
and cannot truly be capable of loving one another.
But I’m still begging him not to give up
like I'm begging him not to shoot.
strapped to a chair while wires
pierced my skin, tested my knowledge
Will this ever end? Come forth not
My tongue tells all lies, as it splits
down the middle towards your
demise.
My eyes turned black my skin crawling
With fear, as my speech comes out
I feel endless fear. strap me down as
The room shakes, come forth as my
Shackles come off I'm going to my
happy place.
Strapped Sticks
Little things to
get strapped sticks with iron tip for
their birthday: onesies, steel cap hiking boots or
shoes, thick shocks too,
stickers to
adorn or to
simply make statements genuine and
beautiful, Food World gift cards, tents thick
blankets, pillows, and
so forth.
An expensive strap is going to cost you
Your credit card a Lion
The chance to beat who pleasure counts
A token love for sign
Where credit keeps you occupied
for loving that means more
When snaps at night mean plots for flight
that points defile for
Telling no one I dress for discreet
the air is balmy, a good day for a killing
I recognize the scent of lilacs
Grandma is here now
Your knife! My spirit guide reminds me.
No problem. I can do this and well.
My purse? No. It would be found right away.
They don’t pat you down there do they?
I am strapped now, ready to do
Whatever it takes.
Scent of cinnamon, Grandma’s sweet crust.
I feel protected, take off on foot, wearing sneakers that sneak.
What did he do? Grandma asks me.
A soft whisper, in my head, but not my ear.
I cannot do this right now.
I push her away.
There is always another side, she tells me.
I cannot do this right now; I will her to leave.
I know he is the one. I work myself up into a tirade.
Leaping on him the second I can.
He is being felled by the monster I became
After my daughter disappeared.
In my heart I know it was him.
There is no mercy.
Chatter of women fill the streets
Happy screams of children in perfect harmony
A beautiful world I see
A knot holds me steady
My mother's back a safe haven for me
As my head rocks slightly from the rythm of her feet
She runs, my head rocking rapidly
children cry, their hands not held, abandoned
As their screams turn into cries of agony.
Like a drum it continues to play
A rythm only played by death I hear
She runs, her heart accelerating
My head bounces, as I cling to her
She runs, as one carrying precious cargo
She runs, to a location not known to her
It all stops, then calamity
As cries tear through the slience
She's breathing heavy, she stops
Warm scarlet colouring her already coloured dress
Oozing as it frees itself from my vessel
She screams, as she sees the remnants of my life dripping from her hands
The knot She holds refusing to let go, a prayer for me
If I were to speak I would console her
But fear grips me, spreading as poison
I'm not strong but this my burden I must carry
Goodbye mamma, This world can't hurt me anymore.
Alan Aldrich was a sports reporter
some declared he was a news distorter.
He denied their gripes
and said by all rights
He was just an athletic supporter.
The thing I used to worry before
when I was hard up, strapped for cash
were bills to pay and other concerns.
Indeed, they’re priorities that need attention.
Across the length of time I’ve survived,
I’ve learned to understand in some ways
I’ve opened the doors to other suggestions
that I should be wise whenever called for.
When urgent needs crop up and unfold
I’ve to be quick to attend to them
for they’re number one and essential
in life’s conditions that describes where I am.
Strapped by hunger fly my hands
In airborne windmill mimicry,
In shapes of gulls above the dunes
Searching sands rapaciously;
For morsels fit to slake the beak
And quash the stomach agony,
The gastric fire flutters,
Burns alive with hurtful sanity.
They burden full of emptiness,
Denied of gruel or clemency,
My love miscarried in their wombs
To dark horizon mystery.
Away they fly, away, above
An ocean toiling hungrily,
And then no more, and so my love
Borne with them to uncertainty...
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