spilled ink

a terrible idea

by Cassie

it’s like running as fast as you can toward a brick wall
you see it coming and part of you is screaming stop
knowing you could wrench yourself off the path,
throw your body to the ground and feel your skin ripped apart by dirt and gravel
taking a little pain to avoid a lot

but another part of you is giddy at the thought
that you might break through the fucking wall and keep going,
red dust in your hair and red blood dripping down your face
a broken nose and scraped forearms and bloody knees
it’ll hurt like hell
but maybe it will be worth
what’s on the other side

you’ll never know unless you try

preceding the sunrise

by Cassie

there’s something about the late night quiet
that seeps into your skin
and fills you up from the inside out
sometimes it makes you burst
and you laugh harder than you knew you could
or you cry easier than you thought you would
and sometimes it opens your mouth
and pushes out words you could never say in daylight
ripping out secrets you swore you’d killed and buried
pushing them without grace into someone else’s hands

in the morning, you are peeled open and raw
the sunshine is too bright
the coffee too bitter
and it doesn’t matter if you laughed or you cried
your chest feels lighter
because part of your heart
is now missing

a dollar’s worth of silence

by Cassie

i want to smash a stack of expensive plates in the middle of the street

and run barefoot through the woods until I’m lost

i want to climb a tree until it sways

and sit there until I’m too cold to stand it

i want to throw sharp, angry rocks through abandoned window panes

and smoke cigarettes until i throw up all over my shoes

i want to drive to the middle of nowhere just to scream as loud as i can

then i’ll lay down in the dirt

and breathe

reach

by Cassie

reach out like you always have
stretch and wiggle your fingers as you search
feel the muscles in your arm become taut as you struggle
pushing with your shoulder, you try harder
and your muscles start to scream as you force them
to keep reaching, stretching further
to continue going forward, and
even your fingertips
vibrate with the strain

you reach out like you always have
but now, what you search for isn’t there
and no matter how much effort you expend
and no matter how many times you try
there is nothing
and you remain

empty

a stupid little poem

by Cassie

sometimes I think that poetry has to be big

that it needs to be existential or ground breaking

that it should be about one of the Big L’s:

life, liberty, love, loss

and that my dumb little poems aren’t poetry at all

but then I remember that in the end, everything’s fucking made up

from words to history to modern society

so I wrinkle my nose and write another stupid little poem

just because it makes me happy

in the wake of Jack Frost

by Cassie

it’s a glittering, slushy mess out there
white winter sunlight melts snow mounds into endless puddles
and snowmen into shapeless piles
it glimmers across snow packed by hundreds of feet
and sparkles through ice covered branches-
even the frigid winds have stopped whistling-
but the quiet of this winter morning
is broken
by the drip drip drip
of dirty icicles