Ivy & Clementines

Tue, 03/19/2019 - 18:13 -- gnored

alone.

 

The word is silently threatening,

leaving you to think as you tip

on the brink

of a shipwreck, about to be

A survivor in a sea of silent strangers

 

alone.

 

You wonder how a God you have been told is good

can leave you abandoned in this world,

without a friend,

“blessing” you with tears

That never end

 

alone.

 

She is an orange,

pleasing others with her aroma and her spice

as she is peeled apart,

broken in half again and again

by those who were supposed

to rewind time

and bind her shivering mind.

 

I found her shattered,

her shield, her orange peel,

spiraling around her,

a vortex of thoughts that she alone finds herself trapped within.

 

Words unspoken,

we traveled to the vortex, becoming unbroken

oceans of sisterly love diffusing like osmosis

Friends in the midst of life-long symbiosis

 

She is hippie skirts and coconut hair,

Snow White voice lilting the air.

Our worlds tilt in synchrony,

but my axis returns to gravity

as hers falls ever so slowly, until

Her world is upside down,

in her stardust she’ll drown,

remnants of burnt relationships

Once thought to be stars.

But her wing tips?

They’re scarred.

 

I cannot take the place

of her imperfect father, half-sisters, grammy, aunt, her everyone.

Isolated in a silent place called space,

A few prayers, but galaxies envelop her in despair,

Suffocating;

there’s no air in the infinite lair of King of Unfair

As he sits in his rocking chair,

Watching her misery peacefully,

unconcerned and completely aware

Of the tears he cut that’ll never repair

Alone. Where was God?

 

 

Cotton Candy is the other girl’s name.

No time to savor the flavor,

as she melts away,

leaving breadcrumbs

in case you should want to track her trail.

 

 

My sister-

My bug loving, stick collecting, creative little explorer, the earth waiting for her, Flora and Fauna’s daughter

Barefoot in the sun,

break out into a run,

Green Gables kind of gal.

but alone.

 

She is silver-green ivy

laced with lime and lavender,

her fanciful dreams winding their way around my family, molding us like clay, never to be the same

But strangest of strange,

she cannot grow on any house but our own.

 

She stays quiet,

invisible underneath her mask of normality

Hiding her regality

Her eyes raised to the stars,

 

The sweet ivy will wilt

if she should fall short

of perfection,

Continuous corrections and rejections

until she sees the ideal reflection

A daily inspection of personal infection,

She suffers from the self-deception

of unfounded imperfections

 

I climb ever higher, grasping star after star

and sometimes I wonder

if her paralyzing struggle

is from trying to live up to my name,

My claim to fame from playing the school game with 98% aim

 

Sometimes I am ashamed,

maybe I should take the blame

for the way she is stuck in the ground,

surrounded by other sprouts

Who don’t know she’s around

because their eyes refuse to reach the sound of her silent suffering,

somehow not spellbound

by the fairytale playground of her life.

 

Alone. Where was God?

 

Moving away, I am faced with new school,

new people,

new hallways,

new doors…

Knock knock. Hello?

People I barely know refuse to open up.

I return to the old passageways,

remember my past days,

hoping they’ll say they miss me always

Knock knock. Hello? People from my past

aren’t up to the apparently laborious task

of keeping me company

 

I return to Virginia, hoping I might have luck,

but to no avail,

I’m stuck in jail without a bail,

I can’t get out

And I start to doubt

That there is a God.

 

The earth makes revolutions,

I go through evolution,

learning to not resist when the world twists around and around.

 

On the walls I have become so accustomed to,

there hangs a mirror.

Within I see the girl I used to be-

Wilting, crowded, thirsty

Closer and closer I peer into the mirror,

nearer, but not clearer, until- BANG!.

No longer a mirror, but a window.

I hear a crescendo as the wind begins to blow

and my feet begin to quiver,

I get a shiver up my spine

as I peer outside and find there lies-

 

Hallways.

Doors.

Tiled school floors.

A flag waving to the world,

none waving back,

whipped by the wind,

following the lead of tyrannous strangers,

invisible, invincible, impossible

to catch their attention.

day after monotonous day,

hoping for just. One. wave. Back.   

 

I thought I was reliving my memories,

but it’s someone else I see- my twin.

We share “unbirthdays”, as Alice would say,

The friendship as mad as the hatter

My blood brother?

No, different fathers, different mothers

 

For though I threw that loneliness away like a boomerang,

though I thought it had fled,

it came back to me when he said,

 

“I am alone”

 

We live each others struggles in stunted replication,

took us awhile to find appreciation

for the way our lives work in synchronization,

a little off beat, a little strange,

still we wouldn’t change

the whip of our boomerang

no matter the pain

of memories being flung at us

when it circles back around our brain.

 

Alone. Where was God?

 

One starry night,

blackness above us and the orange girl with us,

he confessed his pain,

his strain, his struggle to find connections not muffled

Where were those people he was looking for?

Where was the deep, soul connection,

why did he never find that perfection,

but instead chemical confections

of fake people who reject him?

 

I saw a man cry that night.

And I wondered if maybe we were all broken,

our skins peeling off and

our anxieties circling round our brains,

trying to bring us shame,

we couldn’t find anyone to whom we could explain-

 

That no matter the human friends we find,

it’s only a glimmer, a shine,

a shadow of the light that’s really behind

the feeling we’re trying to find

in every person with whose stars we align.

 

No matter how I try to be the best friend

to the orange girl and my twin,

I cannot fit within

the God-shaped hole they live with.

 

I am not enough.

 

How stupid, how presumptuous, how arrogant, how terrible,

how selfish I was to think THAT I

could be the cure to their disease,

the cheddar to their cheese,

the thank you to their please,

their health returning by degrees.

It isn’t me.

 

And once again, I ask, WHERE ARE YOU GOD?

 

That quiet school girl,

new to Virginia is back in the mirror.

Sitting on my bed,

finally getting out recycled words from my head,

WHERE ARE YOU GOD?

 

I’m right here child.

God, God, where are you?

Please. I need somebody.

Something. Something to fill this this emptiness I feel with or without friends,

happiness, high self-esteem, 4-point-some-ridiculous- number GPA…

please...Why are you hiding from me?

 

Child, child, don’t cry.

I’ve told you I’ll dry every eye, wipe every tear

I promise I’m here

Do not tip-toe centimeter by centimeter, afraid to bump into something in the dark.

Run, come here.

I will not abandon you, I will not fail you.

I am the light, not the dancing shadow.

Alone. No more.

 

I’ve wandered enough, a vagabond,

traded back and forth like a game of ping-pong

I run, and

I find I am relieved,

lost in the love I couldn’t conceive

from my creator,

whose love will never unwind and string me along

until I’m lost in a maze of infinite webs and reverberations,

shadows of sound that I never found.

His voice is real and alive, and I don’t have to strive

for his friendship or his love.

 

We were created to need each other.

But the hints of satisfaction we find

when we’re together will never be enough

to quench the thirst we’ve been born with.

Always we’ll ask for just one more sip,

just one more drink

because we think

That’s what will satiate

 

No matter the things

we throw into the abyss-

Books, looks, bow on the string

Grades, friends, wedding rings-

We’re just a broken compass

A bird without its wings

When we keep pitching in various things into our emptiness

 

But

there’s a man my pitches somehow missed

He holds them in his hand, the weight dragging him down

But still, a smile, not a frown

A tear down his jawline

As his hand reaches mine

fingers fit into place, perfectly designed

The air smelling of unbroken clementines

As I walk with God,

Alone’s left behind

 

This poem is about: 
Me
My family
My community
Our world
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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