Sarah Thursday
is a advocate of local poetry, runs a Long Beach-focused poetry website called CadenceCollective.net, co-hosts a monthly reading and started Sadie Girl Press.
Her first full-length poetry collection, All the Tiny Anchors, is available now.
Find and follow her on SarahThursday.com, Facebook (FB/SarahThursdaypoet), or
Twitter @thursdaypoet.
What I Mean When I Say
Run
Get out, get
out
and into the
world
a woman like
me
would tie your hands with
ropes
and hang them from her
hips
Get out while you
can
and let the wind carry
you
a woman like me
would climb from under your
boots
and into your
pockets
lay you down heavy on her
bed
just to rise above
you
Get out and
wander
be a wild
bird
a woman like
me
would clip your song
feathers
and stuff them in her
mouth
just to have your
voice
seeping from her
ears
Get out and make no
promises
don't even say you
won't
a woman like
me
hangs on open window
sills
burns her eyes on the
driveway's end
holds all your
words
like collected
seashells
in her cupped
hands
Get out and go
far
take no existing
path
a woman like
me
would strip you
naked
press you inside of
her
memorize the turn in your
face
in the dim
light
she'd reach in and
pull
all the strength you have
left
Get
out
She'll want to cut
rings
from the center of your
eyes
and string them like
beads
around her
neck
Get out
She'll envy the breath in
your lungs
Get
out
She'll put a straw to your
mouth
Get
out
She'll want you
empty
Get
out
She'll drain you cold as
death
just so she can pour her
blood
into your
veins
Girl in
Flight
I envy the girls
with light filled
wings
They fly from breeze to
breeze
pouring beams from their
teeth
All men audience
them
eat their smiles like
candy
They breathe in
love—
they breathe out
love
No man ever
centers their
universe
I could not be that girl for you
one with laughing
eyelashes
smooth cheeks glossed
for kissing and leaving
kissing and
leaving
I am unwinged, gravity
locked
in oceans—not
sky
teeth for crushing
chains
eyes fire-fed
to burn through
hurricanes
My love is
anchor
my love is whale
song
my love is sandpaper
grit
galaxies inside
pearl
volcanoes under
mountain
My love does not
breeze—
but tunnels into
mantle
burrows into
core
You want a girl in
flight
laughing
eyelashes
but I am unwinged
gravity
Love Letter No. 3: To My Mending
Self
You may begin to miss the
grieving
the adrenaline heart thrashing in
your ribcage
the coughing lungs asking
permission to breathe
You may begin to hear all the
quiets
humid silence
scratching
each day
confirming
this is
it
this is all it will ever
be
You may begin to miss the panic of
hope
tangled in his kite
strings
miss the fight, the battle, the
bruise
miss kissing blood from
rope-burned hands
You may begin to sleep through the
night
to lack
rebuttal
to forget to answer
back
You may begin notice
the crevices in your
wrists
the uneven scurry
of a black beetle across
concrete
notice the sound of lead scraping
paper
how it curls to the rub of an
eraser
disappears like it was never
there
to begin
with
~Sarah Thursday
