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Best Poems Written by Ashley Domenech

Below are the all-time best Ashley Domenech poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

The Fear

7/19/2019
This darkness is all I know,
a widow's wardrobe of funeral clothes.
It hangs curtained under my eyes,
the seed inside me grows allowing the little girl I was to die.

Insomniac sleep walking down the streets, cautiously hopping turnstiles,
custodians keep mopping up bloody streaks, lil girls dropping into the arms of pedophiles.
Starving with no EBT no cash no food pantries no good Samaritans,
stealing food just to eat, then dash, pockets full of candy, passing by rich Americans.
What if I got caught? Will I get locked?
Did that man call the cops? It's hot on the block...
Once I made it out, my anxiety was gone.
If I did it to survive, was it really wrong?
Baptized after birth, couldn't save me from Satan's temptations,
a child of God selling swipes at the train station.

Soon I was boosting designer clothes for girls at the Bronx shelter,
taking extra jobs with BB, when my roommate asked I ain't tell her,
Cuz she introduced me to the Brownsville ocks,
that traded cash for Enfamils n' Similacs we copped,
Paranoia-they'd catch me soon if I got cocky,
close call-I rang off n' ran so fast nobody could stop me.

Now I was bumming bogies for free,
selling loosies for a dollar a piece,
graduated to the loyal clientele of fiends,
weed and crack to young adults and teens,
12 year old boy Iron Man backpack strap clinging to one shoulder,
if I sold him crack what was my limit? 10 and over?

Quit the business but my hustle continued,
In Rego park on a block I'd never been to.
In a hotel room with a man 3x my age,
this man reflected my father as faces began to fade.

I wish I'd popped a pill so I could numb all feeling,
but I talked good game and changed into an outfit more appealin',
I danced around the room...he tried to touch...I said I'm teasin',
watching the clock his hour was up $300 and I was leaving,
Ran back to the train and jumped on the 7 back home,
prayed to God for forgiveness and blocked his number off my phone.

Nothing could instill fear in my heart,
I seen it all, been through it all.
Except the fear of who I'd now become,
if I beckoned to God would the Devil answer my call?

A friend overdosed and I loved an addict but how could I weep?
When I had been responsible for bringing their poison onto the streets?

All my life I feared death....no I feared nothing at all,
until my baby takes her first breath, near or far from my tree will her apple fall?

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

At Peace

7/3/2018
A waxing crescent moon shed a sliver of mystified light on the silhouette of the lonely shadow of a woman.

She sat cross legged on a chunk of hard Earth overlooking a circular abyss of stones.

Different shapes and forms of stones interlocking like puzzle pieces in the Universe’s jigsaw.

Mature naturally arched trees leaning forward as a hunched back Mother Nature would.

Her long locks of leaves high enough never to touch the ground but bowing low enough to dangle freely with the breeze, tickling the woman’s’ brow in a gentle sway.

A barrier of green, a curtain around her sanctuary secluding her from the outside world of black souls and Godless structure.

Misty clouds of dusk play hide n’ seek with the moonlight, showering her vision with schizophrenic darkness and illumination.

She lifts her heavy eyelids, revealing glacial blue irises speckled with amber.

Cool under the shade of her fanning tinted black lashes.

A stray cat investigates a pile of abandoned possessions litter and decomposed plants beside the woman.

Its slender figure perched on top of the pile, gazing at the sky with fluorescent lime eyes signaling sorrow to scattered stars.

The woman’s chi topples over, unbalanced, her meditative state lost.

She is transfixed with the black cat’s hypnotic purrs, its indecipherable plea to a listener above beyond all perception and visibility.

The woman’s throat fell victim to a viselike grip.

A thief in the night robbing precious oxygen…her bulged open pupils losing energy.

Slowly, her strength subsides…her eyelids close like bedroom blinds between a Peeping Tom.

Her body drops against the multi creviced rock.

Alas, she is weightless.

The skull encasing her cranium cracks against countless stones as she is tossed into the shallow hole of the unknown.

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

Dear Unborn Baby

7/10/2018
I used to think a mother was just somebody who made babies
I used to think if I made one, my child would save me.

They'd tell me once you got a kid, you gotta let go of your dreams
no time for college when you gotta cook, change diapers and clean.

I thought I'd have his baby if I couldn't be his wife
but I was only 19 knowin nothing bout life

Girls my age already had 2 kids and an ACS case
stayed wit their mommas or their baby daddys place
head out to clubs and parties while friends watch the kid
not knowing the male presence that stalked over the crib
too busy on their iPhones to notice their 2 year old fell
the baby's hungry chewing up all the drugs daddy left to sell.

Black and Latina women viciously beatin their children
you can hear it all throughout the project building

The anger of being a single teenage mother on welfare
almost worse than when her man kicked her 7 month pregnant belly down the stairs.

The first vision of mom and pops is in family court
cuz he ain't paying no more child support
either way it's spent on pedicures not pampers
daddy misses every visit buyin himself drinks and private dancers.

I used to think a mother was just somebody who made babies
I just hope my child doesn't ever grow to hate me.

Mommy's drowning with depression, daddy's battling being bipolar
pain was our cursed connection, it got worse once he got sober.

Don't ever doubt we loved each other and you
but when daddy saw red, mommy only saw blue.

I'm sorry I cried so much with you in my womb
sorry if you felt papi throw me across the room.

I worried about you baby so I had to leave
it was bad but not worse than I'd ever been beat.

Vow to never let you go through all the stuff I did
though I want him around...I got more than enough love to give.

Dear unborn baby, I've spent 36 weeks carrying you inside
my love only grows as I feel you ready to arrive.

I used to think a mother was just somebody who had babies
but there's a difference between my "mother" and the "woman who made me."

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

The Root of Evil Vs the Bad Seed

3/27/2018       
Spit shined black dress shoes, badges and keys. 

The childlike fear of figures of authority.

Condescending tone, vocal depth, glacial stare

Standing upright, hovering over you sitting in your chair.

Behind a desk, in an office, certificates on the wall. 

College degrees, commemorations, or backed by law.

Cut your mic off in the middle of a moving speech

Raise the prices higher than anything you’ll ever reach.

Knock the legs off the ladder as we climb to the top

The key to their success written in a drawer, kept locked.

Same adults saying, “Shut up n’ listen,” urge you to “Speak up for yaself”

Every time you act or express something different, momma reaches for the belt.

Black robed white collared behind an elevated altar

While Judases sit in pews in fear sin will conquer.

White coated, phone bill charging for half an hour

Costly prescriptions instead of natural herbs and powders.

Weekly sessions diagnosed a mild depression 

If suicide ain’t on your mind, therapy will lead you that direction.

Government imposed taxes and student loans $5,000 debt

Paychecks seized by the bounty hunting IRS.

Currently, currency and power market wars and cancer

Little boy asks, “When’s daddy coming back?” with no answer.

Troubled teens evolved from touched children 

Never spoke for fear their parents would kill them.

Religions already forced them upon their knees

Never blossomed fully because they were said to be ‘bad seeds.’

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

Before 21

I put on makeup so I can feel beautiful

Put up curtains so I can feel at home

Got a baby that's half a family

20 years old looking 15

In the middle of the ghetto and gentrificA-town

By the Projectz and the precinct 

I've got a closet full of donated clothes

 I ask God why this is the life he gave me, mama says this is the life I chose

Not quite white with Latina ancestry

But you'd never believe it, if you took a look at me

Hold on my baby's crying

I turn up my music so I can't hear a thing

Just for a few minutes...

Sometimes I picture myself photogenic behind a picket fence

Wishing I could ignore my present situation 

I pick her up feed her the milk from my breast wishing I could be babied and loved without bounds

Another single mother tally up another statistic 

Product of molestation young and misunderstood by my miserable mother moralizing prescriptions of medication for her daughter because daddy is the one who's money making

That's the least she can do cuz her name ain't even on the lease
 
Gotta let men rape cuz everybody wants a piece, right?

 All old white men look like creeps at night

At least to me

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

Crown

My mind is...
Living through a blue fog 
Falling down an abyss
A video game world
Simulation of life
Insecurities
Every mirror is a microscope
Tragic monologue
Unfinished screenplay
Fear of a smile 
Routine movement
The withering of a rose
Vessel of a heart in a glass jar
Voodoo doll of the 21st century

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

Twin Flame: Separate

I'm not sure if you love me anymore
Or just fear the next man since you're so insecure

You were the only man on my mind when you were mine

Got me knocked up and kept me locked up, 
I ran from you time and time only to pop up

I hesitate to call you...
used me like a teacher piping his student
Your voice is in tox ic a ting I can't be under your in flu ence

Let's watch him 
shedding snake skin 
to get under mine

In a fetal position
 pierce my pupils with a needle before kissin 
...love is blind

I don't need you I'm just lonely
My bed is cold I need someone to hold me

Clinging to the familiar for fate faithfully put you in my life path
Now you join the million faces that walk past
In different directions
I feel bare I need protection

You told me 
you wanted babies

 you wanted to get married
And I went crazy
Knowing a happy ending doesn't exist 

It's either you got kids with somebody you hate
Or marry the one you love long enough to fall out of it 

 Love alone isn't enough
Remember it's only a feeling 
my heart won't stop beating
Like the anger you possess
Choke me until I stop breathing
You're a wounded man that needs healing

I had a dream you were in my home 
Walking around like a ghost only to realize I wasn't alone
 The time past so fast now your daughter was fully grown
 you faded into the hem of my curtains until your soul drifted off where the wind had blown

Details | Ashley Domenech Poem

The Realm of Depression

5/28/2018
What am I doing in a place like this?

So distant yet right at my fingertips…only a few know it exists.

A coat of Pacific blue chipping off into an opaque faded shade of grey—stony tone—of an unmarked grave.

Blanket of night, sky of ebony clay, never again will these chestnut eyes see the light of day.

Building ladders, each time adding a few feet.

Extending my arms to lift the darkness that never will I reach.

The heart, once a vital organ, dried out like a raisin. Stiffly standing upright, a statue somewhere in the streets.

Never to be found and revived. My bare body shed its skin to bone. To a skeletal reflection I see in these crimson puddles on concrete.

Rotting carcass of a joyful woman I must step over to get to the view of those in the place I once belonged to. A quickly timed glimpse before I’m forced to return.

Until the night her rotting remains enflamed. I watched the projector slowly begin to burn.

All that’s left are ashes that blow away with an artic breeze.

What would it matter when soon I could no longer see?

Sidewalks melted concrete to tar streets.

Disintegrated into unstable piles of rocks. No more grass, trees, flowers, and crops.

Brick buildings demolished along with glass towers smashed. God was dead.

Animals already fled while I remained on the edge.

The people warned me as my eardrums bled.

Lips parted but I could no longer speak.

Faces faded from my memory. I cannot remember or even dream.

But to you, I stare blankly in this black leather seat.

Surrounded by them, who are different versions of me.

They wonder why I’m here because “the girl never speaks.”