Posted in art, honesty, poetry

Fade

Fade  Forgotten at 80 miles an hour, headlight after headlight found and lost again, boxes kicking up dirt from the road, moving the dust of passing time, the remnants of traction shifted in changing flight, machines, the people inside faceless to the night.  I’m invisible as I drive and know the tail lights ahead can’t see me cry or wonder why my hand rips at my hair as I choke on lyrics, words caught like flies in my windpipe, bowing to the mercy of whatever needs to be screamed and silenced before I reach home.  Would he notice if I faded into the shadows between the street lamps, pulled the car to the side of the road and abandoned this enterprise? Or has he forgotten my face,  my name as I speed along the highway in my box, collecting dead bugs, nameless to sight.

This poem didn’t capture everything that I needed to say tonight. I’m not sure what it is that I need to say right now or really what emotion I’m currently feeling. Everything tonight is nameless and blurry, and that’s how I feel about this poem. It works because it’s messy and introspective and unclear and honest, but it’s still missing something. It’s missing heart.

Good night my friends,

Leanne Rebecca

Posted in poetry, writing

Elemental

Elemental  I thought about going to sleep with the eye makeup still on, convinced that choosing to strip off that layer would rob me of self expression, vanquish the artistic beauty screaming  from this morning’s play when no one was around as I spent an hour reworking pigments, trying again and again until obsession and satisfaction married and I fell in love with what I’d created.   There’s no denial of vanity, living in reflection, caring what the eyes see blinking behind masks, disposable self-mutilation inflicted again and again with intention, to impress, to cry out these feelings inside that need to escape, to beg to be seen in the irony of hiding.  It wasn’t just removing eye liner as I forced the cotton ball across my lid. It was wiping away today’s identity, the me I wanted to be, the words I couldn’t say  entrenched in how heavily I caked the black: my lashes coated in heart, a persona crafted by my own hand to detract from the one underneath the smudges, the paint washed away by late night confessions, evidence lost in the sink, another day, another girl forgotten.

It’s almost 2 in the morning and my eyes are burning from keeping them open too long. I didn’t sleep much last night either. I have this frustrating urge to keep fighting, to push a little longer. I don’t think I’ve ever posted a poem this late, or early, depending on how you see it, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to get these words out. I needed to try. I just need to keep trying.

Good night now,

–Leanne Rebecca