To Be the Only Thing Aching
And at dawn, she crawls beneath her covers to escape
the sunrise, replacing it with a hot darkness, particles
of light splaying through the blinds, casting softly
on the blanket wrapping her body in a quiet
shadowed desperation,
and there beneath the covers, the skeletons of memories,
the mind's discarded carcasses lying next to her--
bones of useless things, the weight of his eyes frozen in time,
both measures of distance and the end of desire--
shadowed: darkened exhibits stretched thin
skeletons: open cages housing the songs of birds
time: the delicacy of ephemeral life
desire: to be the only thing aching
all of these words tangled in the sheets, drowning in the sweat,
and in the room next to where she lies, muffled voices,
the rustling of a newspaper, a fan oscillating in the window,
a white sound--emptiness;
beneath the blanket she amplifies, expels this white
sorrow, come to terms with the aching, how her life
echoes a litany of unspeakable words, the heartache
of accountability;
she's close to death, breathing in its inevitability--
the bodies resembling slaughtered cows,
bloodied sacrifices, moments of sacredness;
momentary dust,
everyday debris, this white…letting go, letting go.
Burying the Dead
He says I'm supposed to heal, reconcile
the past, even if pain is the healing
and the reconciling burying the dead.
So I cover myself in black and howl
over empty caskets, watch the internments,
smell the cremations, seek solace|
in stowing red roses beneath my bed,
shelving ashes in my closet. I have only
flowers, a color, a scent, stretching my
insides out until I let it all go, go down,
down until it is dying, dead, my world
breaking open, heart unbound, having no
word for closure or anything like it.
Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in a small town in New York where she is a wife and mother of two. Her poetry has been most recently featured in scissors and spackle, Stone Highway Review, and other fine journals, and is slated to appear in Grey Sparrow Press among others. Her chapbook, Forgetting Aesop, was released this month by the publishers of scissors and spackle.
And at dawn, she crawls beneath her covers to escape
the sunrise, replacing it with a hot darkness, particles
of light splaying through the blinds, casting softly
on the blanket wrapping her body in a quiet
shadowed desperation,
and there beneath the covers, the skeletons of memories,
the mind's discarded carcasses lying next to her--
bones of useless things, the weight of his eyes frozen in time,
both measures of distance and the end of desire--
shadowed: darkened exhibits stretched thin
skeletons: open cages housing the songs of birds
time: the delicacy of ephemeral life
desire: to be the only thing aching
all of these words tangled in the sheets, drowning in the sweat,
and in the room next to where she lies, muffled voices,
the rustling of a newspaper, a fan oscillating in the window,
a white sound--emptiness;
beneath the blanket she amplifies, expels this white
sorrow, come to terms with the aching, how her life
echoes a litany of unspeakable words, the heartache
of accountability;
she's close to death, breathing in its inevitability--
the bodies resembling slaughtered cows,
bloodied sacrifices, moments of sacredness;
momentary dust,
everyday debris, this white…letting go, letting go.
Burying the Dead
He says I'm supposed to heal, reconcile
the past, even if pain is the healing
and the reconciling burying the dead.
So I cover myself in black and howl
over empty caskets, watch the internments,
smell the cremations, seek solace|
in stowing red roses beneath my bed,
shelving ashes in my closet. I have only
flowers, a color, a scent, stretching my
insides out until I let it all go, go down,
down until it is dying, dead, my world
breaking open, heart unbound, having no
word for closure or anything like it.
Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in a small town in New York where she is a wife and mother of two. Her poetry has been most recently featured in scissors and spackle, Stone Highway Review, and other fine journals, and is slated to appear in Grey Sparrow Press among others. Her chapbook, Forgetting Aesop, was released this month by the publishers of scissors and spackle.
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