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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
Have I ever mentioned that I once was a ballerina?
I used to dance like water.
Nothing used to bother my movements.
My stride, my step, my every motion.
I was motion.
I became beautiful when the sway of my dress matched the sway of the lilting piano music.
I sang with the bend of a knee, the break of a breath.
I used to monologue with my shoulders, with my hips.
I was beautiful.
I could turn any beat into a flicker of my ankles.
I was so beautiful.
And then the music became too loud one day.
And I lost my rhythm.
And then I became a revengeful dancer.
I learned to dance to impress.
I learned how to make the beat follow me, instead of letting the beat move first.
I became dissappointed with my rhythm.
I became a simple statistic in a tutu.
And I hated what it was.
What I was.
So I quit.
I had grown up so used to quitting: a conversation, a relationship, an evil memory.
I was amazing at quitting.
So I stopped dancing.
It became typical of me to tap my feet in a diner playing jazz music, instead of me swaying my body while I ate pancakes.
It became a ritual for me to fake my dislike for moving.
I became a tree trunk, when I used to be the leaves.
In the past, I was amazing.
I was more than amazing.
I was something to be seen, to be watched, to be taken into account.
I was great, and then I wasn't.
But I'm learning again.
Now I dance, but it's between breaks at work.
I wiggle in the drivers seat when a nice tune starts playing.
I bob my head to music from park speakers, and bounce my shoulders when I've got my headphones in at school.
I don't ever think I will remember how to do a proper pirouette or tendu, but I am learning to remember how they used to feel.
I am finding it easier to sway and slip and dip backwards.
I am relearning how to smile when I dance.
It is quiet, but it's there now.
I am trying.
Have I ever mentioned I used to be a ballerina?
If I haven't, that's because I'm not anymore.
I'm just a dancer.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
I am all too aware of my presence inside of this armor.
My breathing in here makes it humid and muggy, yet my spear still strikes.
They call this the ultimate sacrifice, but I'm not sacrificing anything.
A sacrifice is given.
I have been forced into the suit of metal by a man that I thought was good.
This has happened before.
A man claiming to be just and to use his knowledge for the good of the people, only to shove those people head-first into a battle.
Into a war.
This is tyranny and I am in armor that I did not choose for myself.
If my garden still remains, after such bloodshed as this, I wish to grow eggplants.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
Maybe belonging
Isn't about
Finding something
Maybe sometimes
It's about
Being found.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
It is ridiculous to think that being peaceful implies weakness.
If you want your peace, you must be willing to fight for it.
As in protests.
If you want to lead a war, you must be a pacifist.
As in manipulation.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
We all get so used to touching skin, that a lot of times we forget how to feel it.
We forget what the texture is.
We lose the memory of praising every hair, every mole and freckle.
Skin is so soft: like supple, smooth, plump, creamy, clean.
Rough: like dry, cracked, chapped, chafed, itchy, dirty.
Warm: like heat, abundance, heavy, tender, thick.
Cold: like chilly, like blue, like elbows and toes in the winter time.
We forget to lovingly run our fingers over every scar, every bruise, every jut, and crevice, and stretch mark, and dimple.
We forget that our hair needs love, not just on our heads, but between our brows, on our chins, and under our armpits, on our shins, our pubic areas, our big toes.
We have forgotten the feeling of the weight that we carry beneath our skin.
Every muscle, tendon, pound of fat.
We have forgotten that having our skin is to have oxygen, sweat, body odor, confidence, insecurity, stability.
Our skins are warriors.
They fight and bleed, they wrinkle and twist.
Every cell of our skin is replaceable, replaced every seven days.
We have forgotten that our skin means renewal, means rebirth, means rejoice.
We have forgotten that our skin is the only home we will ever truly own.
They say that our bodies are our temples, our churches, our synagogues.
We have forgotten most of all that our skin is the stained glass windows.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
Ceramic smiles,
Stupid ceramic smiles,
Filling stupid ceramic bathroom walls.
Tiles lined up like teeth.
Lemonade words spit in lime colored ways,
Across an ocean of tiles and walls.
And sometimes the bathroom walls sing melodies.
When the ceramic knife is too dull to make the cut.
When the lighter runs out of fuel.
Sometimes,
Your hair gets knotted,
Tied together,
Anchoring you like a rowdy boat
Strung closely to the dock.
Keeps the boat from growing legs, you know?
Keeps the boat from walking away,
Keeps your head in the right place.
Maybe wrong times,
But nobody ever had to know about that.
Stupid plastic smiles
And too many plastic 'I love yous' to care about the meaning of the words anymore.
It stops being about the blood,
Starts wondering what the hell is going on
It starts being about the reminder of the blood.
What it's for.
Who cares if you bleed
Just another maxed out credit card,
Flushed down the toilet.
Just another fifty dollar bill stuffed into another bra.
"Dance some more, baby!"
"Do that thing with your hips, baby!"
"Smile some more, baby!"
"Earn your keep, you disgrace!"
Neverending 'care' from people that don't,
Neverending fake from people who are.
"What, can't keep your dog on a leash tight enough?"
It's insulting to think more of yourself, than a dog.
A leash,
Just another name for a noose,
If you tilt your head and choke a little.
They say that better days are coming
Preach it like rain.
Spit lemonade words full of watermelon seeds,
Bursting with lies.
Lie after lie
No lie is white,
But the piece I carry comes with an ivory grip.
Lost too many times on the side of busy street.
You would have thought broad daylight would have been a safe enough space.
Not perfect,
But at least not hidden.
Too tight pants
Yell some too tight vocabulary.
Vomit up something that sounds like ceramic and blood,
Maybe some people shouldn't eat glass for breakfast.
Ceramic smiles and plastic cheeks
And I still can't get away from my own head long enough for the fireball and THC to numb the thoughts.
Maybe sometimes, it's call 'small talk,'
Because those with big mouths don't want you to see
That they will swallow you up and spit you back out.
Like lemonade words
And bloody back molars.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
There are birds that leave the nest too soon
You are like that
All fumbling feathers and heartbreak with sternum kissing ground
You grew up early, Paige
I don't think you ever learned to fly correctly
No one was your teacher
You stumbled to near content
Walked right up to it's door
And you lost the nerve to knock
To ask for help
Now you are stuck staring at the doormat wondering when you'll be let in
When you will finally get your portion of warm soup
I think you are similar to a bird that learned to fly through a broken wing
Gritted beak and glassy eyes
Like a stone thrown, rather than skipped
Stunted, but trying
Still beautiful, but grounded without support
I think you're a woman that grew up only ever expecting broken glass under your knees.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
I've shoved everything into the corners of my room,
And now there are little bits of everything that I can't seem to get rid of, scattered across my carpet.
And there are cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, giving my already dimly lit room a Halloween-worthy performance.
I told you that I was going to tidy the place up,
But it was hard to find the motivation to do so.
There is a pile of clean laundry, stacked a bit too high on my bookshelf, that is teetering sideways.
Those clothes probably aren't even clean anymore.
Those books are probably the only things in my bedroom that aren't covered in dust.
I told you that we needed laundry soap, and asked you to pick some up from the store on your way home from pilates class,
But I didn't tell you that I was going to use that soap to clean my bed sheets.
I haven't quite gotten around to my linens yet, and at first the sheets seemed so easy to deal with.
But a few days have gone by, and now my bedsheets are an uphill mountain that I'm struggling to climb over.
Barefooted and without a safety net, it feels.
You were so kind, and you told me that you had no problems picking up the flower and chemical smelling laundry soap after your health venture from town.
But now I feel like such a failure for not washing my sheets.
And they so desperately need to be washed.
And I so desperately want to be lost in that landscape printed onto the front of the laundry soap jug.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
Anger becomes a drug
Becomes a fix
An addiction
Anger is easy to eat
Slides down your throat
Melts on your tongue like butter
Sits in your stomach like glass
Anger is cold
Like ice
Or like liquid nitrogen
Looks cold until it burns
Anger is hard to fight
Easy to hit
Hard to bruise
Anger is a friend of mine
A best friend if you will
Nothing stands between me and my anger
I buy her clothes and dress her pretty
I feed her crooked smiles and rubber bands
I let her lay in my bed
And go to my parties
And sometimes, I let her talk to my mother
And sometimes, I let her talk to me
And I let her live her life
Like any good person would
Or bad person would
I have a friend
Her name is Malice
Like Alice;
But Angry.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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Iris B. Fayne-Onlook Poem
You dig because that's your job.
You sink your hands in the mud and you spend time with the human ribs in the dirt.
That time has washed away.
You dig because you have to
Because the professor told you to look "over there" and to "make yourself useful."
So you do, and you dig.
You sit side by side with the silt.
With the ash and clothing and hair.
You have supper with a skeleton.
You pick your teeth with finger bones you pulled from the clay
You are covered in sand and sloppy wet ground up to your elbows
Because for a few minutes you were down on your knees
Face to face with the past.
Reminiscent of a prayer.
Copyright © Iris B. Fayne-OnLook | Year Posted 2024
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