Poetry by Melanie
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drop

it's cold outside
and I want to be colder
to lie beneath the silent stars
weeping to the sky
and feel the concrete cold and hard
beneath my skin, a frigid touch
I want to be lost in time
instead of lost in emotion
my heart just rules too much
and sadness is the price I pay
I want to be colder
than the ground against my flesh
than the stares that meet my gaze
than my breath in midnight air
I want to be cold as cold can be
and I want to be colder still
I want to be the end of caring whether
warmth will come to me
M. Haley

cold, visceral, taint

creeping through my frame
sliding through my being, this poison that lives within me
it is the ruler of my soul
the cold, triumphant monarch who shreds each fiber
with glittering trident, with silver claws
it twirls within my innards, clothing itself in intestines and linings
shaking my carcass, he rends my heart apart...
and wears it as a shriveled, broken crown
and through time.... through life....
he draws me in..... to fall within myself.....
this poison is absorbing me... soaking me up....
with my very own heart, that withered, fractured thing
what once was joy can now be pain... only pain....
I am my own defiler
and I will wear myself like this crown
this little... shattered... crown...

M. Haley - 7/5/99

the withering

I feel myself growing bitter...
and that's something I never wanted to be...... but it's seeping into me......
and I'm letting it..... because
it's the only thing that wants me now.....bitterness...

I feel myself growing ancient...
and that's something I always knew I was....... but it's falling from above.....
a feather touches my left cheek
its fiber shudder, age my flesh, and I become...... ancient...

I feel myself..... growing downward...
and that's a coldness I need to learn..... but it's icecold makes me burn...
and I'm sighing, blissful... longing...
it's the only place that needs me now...... down... down... down.....

6/24/99
M. Haley

shroud (#2)

she came in the window and left me a smile
every hour was the last one forever
he came to the door and laughed in my face
every moment was lasting forever
wrap me in pictures and faded debris
wrap me in cellophane tears
drape every last hair around me like fabric
we have insignificant years

she came to the rooftop and lept to the ground
knew she'd make it no never
he came to the crosswalk and ran to the car
knew he'd be crying much better
wrapped up in consistency
wrap up the last contradiction
drape every last wish until I'm all covered
we know these dreams are all fiction

shroud

with complaceny
lost always alone

shroud

get a taste of me
shroud
I'm the best of the gone


shroud
M. Haley

Little Ribbons

hushed and quiescent, her aching beauty lay ageless before me
flesh like polished stone, so pallid, so lovely
all traces of life or love leached from her ashen form
this cold and deathly archangel, draped by sorrow in black satin
it's folds arranged like so many petals of the finest weeping rose
who bows her head toward the stony ground when laden with iron droplets of rain?
is it she or her opressor, this maddened world which holds her prisoner?
but now she displays her triumph in the finest showing of strength and glory
a glistening ribbon of liquid vermillion coiled about her slender wrist
and fallen hence from her once firm grasp is this, the instrument of her departure
this precious blade sealed with the crimson kiss of her passing presence
eternity now hath smiled upon her, delicate maiden so unduly wronged
and now on wings of murmuring rapture carries her on to dreams and sight

M. Haley - 7/12/99

his request

smile he told me
shall I bare my teeth at you?
my truest smile is the smile of grief that
twists my lips in sorrow
laugh he told me
dare I burden you with this sound?
madness taints the laughter of a soul
lost in its own longing
be joyous he told me
should I tell you of my only thought?
the whispers of death bring my only hope on
their shadowed lips each moment

he told me he implored me he asked me again and again
only hoping to comfort
only driving the sorrow deeper into my heart and mind
asking me so earnestly to be all the things I wish for but
know will never grace me... love me... show me even a thought...
he hoped for me

M. Haley - 9/7/99

Meant for Me

I know I am a bleak being
but what exactly did you expect?
I'm supposed to be bleak you know
I know you think I'm missing joy
but what reason for joy did you detect?
there is no point in joy anymore
I once had hopes and dreams
but I gave up the battle when I saw the truth
if I were meant to be happy it would've happened by now
I'm just supposed to be miserable always
the long-time ending that I await will be here soon
and then you'll see it too-
this place was not meant for me
M. Haley

What I Have Made

I tremble and cry, I huddle in my corner with fear
Something chases me, taunting me at every turn
do you see it? can you feel the torment in my life?
I linger and long- maybe it will take me
destroy me in my pain and make me free . . .
but yet it taunts me
hissing in my face like an angry cat
with white foam and spittle stinging
my cheeks and heart
it claws my body and shreds my soul
like a creature too long kept caged
I whimper and shudder as I sense its approach
my eyes are tightly shut and I pray-
if I can't see it maybe it can't see me
and then I feel it-
my pursuer's breath hot on my neck
it's breath falls heavily on my throat- in and out
the breathing- burning my flesh with its malevolence
and a new brand of torment
it suffers because of me
I open my eyes to look upon this creature
that so wishes me ill . . .
and I look into the eyes of loss . . .
my own eyes stare back at me filled
with love, innocence, and trust- all the things I
have lost and long for again . . .
but as I stare a gnarled and withered
hand reaches out to grasp my heart
plunging through the flesh and bone of my chest
spindly fingers clutching, wrapping around my heart
I scream and cry, tears of pain and anguish
mingled with bittersweet joy course down
my cheeks- bright red with the blush
of startled embarrassment and acceptance
as fragile fingers squeeze my empty heart to a stop
I stare into the eyes and life I lost
my lips on both faces curl and twist
into an embittered smile of resignation and triumph
as I experience this- the death I've made for myself
M. Haley

cyclic inability

I can't see myself in the mirror
I don't hear my voice when I speak
 I remember a moment
a moment that stays with me every day
an ache so strange I can't tell if it's painful or
 not
sitting in a chair, curled into the scratchy fabric
comfortable because I want to be
my toes curl into the mottled and ancient shag
carpet and
I turn to my left, glancing toward the television
absently
and I blink
I blink and see something I've been missing
I've lost it for years and even lost the knowledge
that it existed
for one moment I was myself
and I could see
I could hear and with that one burst of recognition
grew an ache
for all of the haze I'd been living in and for the
haze that was
returning
one moment to realize one moment of rest in
this continuous cycle of erratic excess and numbing
stupor
one moment to remember and taunt me wishing for more
than seconds
and settling for whatever comes because choice is
not part of the rounds
it took a moment to ache
a moment to blink

- 2/22/01 3:13 a.m.

anything

the air in my room feels like cold steel
solid but hinting at malleability
 it sits against my bare skin a touch
that should illicit chills or pain from its
 utter lack of warmth I'm
 beyond feeling it in the negative it
makes me cold it cools my skin more than
it should but I could never try to push it away
cover it with a blanket or a shirt because
it lets me know I'm still here still
 in my room racing through thoughts in
sluggish repose my senses are muddled so
that I barely know what's real and
I lie in the cold in a place with no life in a
tulle-draped
 cell too removed from myself to shiver to cry
 or to think

- 1/22/00

dorothy

the trash can in this room enthralls me
everything in a studio seems art even
as it falls into the Dorothy trashcan with
a gurgle or a thud
a little bit of art in everything
sometimes a screaming aching beauty
harsh but undeniable
 Dorothy holds a secret prize
broken plaster fingers, rusted wire forms, wet
paper towels spattered with the blood of a
studio injury accidental or forced
accidental or forced?
relief breeds thieves and liars here lie
both
accidental or forced, the room grows too
loud the thought runs too deep and
a tool becomes a self-proclaimed weapon
an instrument of relief
Dorothy holds a secret covered with my blood
the thing called relief festers into guilt, denial
carry on the work continue the act
the trash is taken out and you can see into
the depths once more clean Dorothy
awaits her next prize

- 12/00

See More of Melanie's Work

http://users.drak.net/RowanRaven/musing/poetry.html

www.orchiddreaming.com/tig/

Thanks to Marie at Artistic Designers for Background Graphics:-)

http://www.artistic-designers.com