May 1, 2015

Sarah Thursday: Three Poems, "What I Mean When I Say Run"


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

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