Hornet’s Nest Splayed open I had a heart, sweet meat my parents made a feast of. A chamber for her A chamber for him. They dined on it again & again. When devoured, in its place they placed a woody pulp honest nest. That’s always a buzz, never at rest. Alert. Anxious. Always. © SB …
American Chestnut The American chestnut is long gone, that doesn’t stop me from hoping in its thunderous limbs. I’m compassion; I’m not compassion. It’s all clinging to thinkings, like: how I think someone how I think I should be. This is the me that pisses; this is the me that reads Buddhist psychology; this is …
Angry river, you’ve blistered my veins You’ve belched out slashes with your flailing arms and gnashing fangs Sunk deep into my heart’s darkness, where I’ve been drunk on those scares for sixty years. © SB Joy, 2022 oh resentment, I’ve been drunk on your loving ways SB Joy
It was a blazing hot moon when the doorbell rang. It was a delivery guy dropping off a yellow square post-it note from my long dead mother. The note said: I am not the villain you portray me as. I turned the post-it over and scribbled: Not at this address, then handed back it back …
Skinned A family can survive major pruning. The loss of parent, grandparent, child. However, a family tree can’t survive without its bark. The stripping away of my childhood’s outer layer. The intentional toughing up routines backfired, thinning the skin until raw and every word or touch burned like a bare light socket sunk into my …
Silence Fifty years plus, silenced & caged. To write is to free the golden finch, imprisoned at eight, by a man’s filthy hands, reaching where claws don’t belong. The golden finch’s songs ruptures the cage & silence’s song. © SB Joy, 2021 What song has trauma silenced in you? SBJ
Greedy Hands Angel in bright white night gown Soiled, smudged from your earthly visit, Trapped in the trauma of a little boy Raped by his mother’s man. You can’t unsee, that dirt, that stain, It doesn’t come clean, the bile Of man’s defiling greedy hands Shoveling himself inside a little boy. © SB Joy Image …
MOnsteR How is it I was terrified as a child and no one took notice? Most likely it was because those in charge of noticing were the monsters under the bed. They were the conundrum. Without them I would die, with them I may die. A child stuck in mid-air, weightless, unattached, discombobulated. What to …
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