August 29, 2014

 My Body is the House I Can't Stop Setting on Fire

My mother used to tell me that my body 

is a temple

with stained glass and high ceilings and the songs of angels inside,

but it took me sixteen years to realize

that she mistook the flames in my eyes for sunlit windows

and my broken screaming for song.

My bones creak like wooden floors

beneath the weight of my heavy skin

with every step I take,

I have poured so much kerosene into my blood

that it pumps through my veins

and swallowing kindling before the matches

is just an extra precaution

that I am willing to take,
because this house I grew up in

has never felt like home

and I have always been a stranger in my own halls.

I've been growing up alongside my ghosts in this body

doing my best to fend off the darkness that surrounds them

and consumes me

but the nightlight in my room does not keep them away.

 I've found it easier to breathe smoke through my lungs

and let my rotting walls go up in flames 

because the fire shooting through this house 

burns bright enough to be reflected in 

the tinted windows of my eyes

and setting my ghosts on fire is so much easier

than living among them.

 ~~~~

     So as of Wednesday of last week, I have completely scrapped the two and a half chapters of the book I was writing. I got completely stuck and had the worst writers block I've ever gotten, so even though I because extremely attached to the characters and the setting, I decided to change my project because I couldn't find a way around the various plot holes.
      Now, I've decided to do a poetry collection, like I had expected I would do at the beginning of this course. Three weeks into the nine weeks, I've already written many poems surrounding this topic, so I'm already a good chunk into the twenty or so poems I'd like to have in my completed work.
      The collection will be centered around the theme of home. Due to moving around a lot, facing depression and body image issues, and letting various people call themselves my home, this topic has always been one I tend to avoid. Lately however, I've been more and more willing to write about it. One of my good friends once told me that the things that hurt were the things I wrote best about, and I'm trying to take her advice.
      I know that this project will be much easier for me to complete, due to the fact that I'm constantly writing poems.
---Abbey Nichole