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Raven Laine Poem
I realize then, that my entire emotional existence embodies contradiction. I profess how you’ve wounded me but haven’t I presented you with your weapon and placed your finger on the trigger? “You hurt me! Again, you’ve maimed me!” but I held the target still on my chest for you. How can I cry out in pain, broken and bleeding but return the knife to you with the blade still aiming at me?
Copyright © Raven Laine | Year Posted 2024
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Raven Laine Poem
Sometimes I hate seeing pictures of myself when I was younger. Baby pictures, homecoming photos, the embarrassing high school Facebook selfies. The nostalgia is there, sure. But when I look at that girl, sometimes I don’t recognize her. I don’t feel any true connection to BEING her. But I do envy her. It’s not like I hadn’t experienced pain and heartbreak yet. I was born into trauma, so I’m not sure there was ever a time when heartbreak wasn’t my rain cloud. It’s always been there. No, I think I envy her because she’d experienced pain and tragedy but she didn’t fully understand it yet. She thought she did. But she also thought she’d dance again. She thought her first love would sweep her off her feet and never let her touch the ground again. She thought stars never burnt out and that there were always happy endings. She thought the sun always eventually came out from behind the clouds. She thought men respected the word “no” and mothers came home to their babies. She had naivety disguised in her heart as hope. Optimism. She saw the world in color. She never dreamt that she could lose that outlook on life. But she will. In just a few years, she’ll feel that hope fade. I wish I could go back and hold her. But I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t tell her that her first love uses and abuses her. I wouldn’t tell her that addiction takes over her little brother too. The only person who truly understands her pain on a personal level. I wouldn’t tell her that her mind and body are hiding secrets from her to protect her from the trauma those memories will awaken. I wouldn’t tell her that mom doesn’t show up to do her hair for homecoming or even to see her graduate. I wouldn’t tell her that the burn from the trauma only gets worse. I wouldn’t tell her that the rainbow doesn’t always come after the storm. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t take that from her. I would let her keep that mirage of eternal optimism for as long as she could grasp it. I wouldn’t tell her that we don’t see the world in color anymore.
Copyright © Raven Laine | Year Posted 2024
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Raven Laine Poem
Life with you has always felt like waiting at a train station. I’d curl up on the cold benches and wait on you forever, I think. When you finally get off, I’m so excited that I feel tears of joy stinging my cheeks. I race over to hug you and you give me a smile that never quite reaches your eyes anymore. But it used to. I used to get your biggest, tear filled smiles. Now, I catch you glancing back at the train every few seconds almost as if you’re worried you’re making a mistake. Longing for it as if you belong there with them and not here with me. You pretend though. For me, you pretend to be happy here in your sobriety. We make plans and talk about the future and it almost feels as if you never left. But each time I have to catch and steady myself and remember. I could turn my back for a split second and you’ll be crawling back to board that train again. Instead I just cherish the time I get with you in the present. I’ll avoid thinking too much about the future. I’ll take this time and savor it and never take a moment for granted. I’d never take a moment in your presence for granted. It will start to feel like old times when I was young. It always does. But I’m not a kid anymore. I know my mother isn’t perfect. I know I’ll turn around and see you boarding the train again without so much as a glance in my direction. Not because you don’t care, but because they are there. I see you find a seat next to them. Your friends. They must be the ones you talk about. The ones that get you. The ones with sunken cheekbones and bruises on their forearms. I watch you through the window as THEY get your full smile. Your real laugh. But I get you too, Mama. The train starts moving and I begin running next to your window. Waving my arms and crying out, begging you to just hear me, to see me. “Please, Mom! I get you too! I do! Just one more hug! Don’t go yet! Please! When will I see you again? WILL I see you again? Please, just look at me! I love you!” But you don’t. They have your undivided attention and you don’t even notice me. And suddenly, I can’t run anymore. I can’t find comfort on those cold hard benches waiting for you anymore. You’ll ride that train of addiction for as long as you want and I won’t be able to stop it. You’re the only person who can. I watch your train get smaller and smaller as it puts miles between us and I just think “I hope you’ll think of me. I hope you’ll remember that I love you.”
Copyright © Raven Laine | Year Posted 2024
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Raven Laine Poem
My heart plays somber symphonies. It plays them exclusively for me. They are fragile and feminine. Breathtaking and melancholy. They perform songs of tragedy and cry out with sorrow but they are perceived by myself alone. Like an isolated violinist in a vacant theater, they are radiant but heartbreaking. My heart plays somber symphonies. Can’t you hear them?
Copyright © Raven Laine | Year Posted 2024
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Raven Laine Poem
To behold an individual’s artistic creation is to see their heart and soul displayed, raw to the world. How selfless and valiant to bare all of oneself through whichever medium your hands have chosen to find solace in. It is to open up your heart and your mind and project the core of that which is entirely and irrevocably YOU. It is your inimitable emotional fingerprint on the world. No one can ever replicate it in its entirety. To speak from the heart in art, music, literature? Oh, what unparalleled beauty.
Copyright © Raven Laine | Year Posted 2024
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