Poetry through the Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Tiny feet
walk on graves,
bring her back to me.
bone
breath
flesh
smile
If magic could return
her to this world,
would I cast that spell?
Or can I believe
she has lived
her life and moved on
to other obligations,
leaving me
to find a way
to walk the earth
without her?
It’s okay to cry
and cry
and cry
because without her
all I am
is tears.
i breathe into her mouth
to bring life
as she once did for me
but she’s cold
like a lake in winter
please don’t hurt her
how can she be my mother
one instant
and the next
just a body
* * *
Grief is silent.
Grief is screaming,
lying in swatches of color
strewn around the room.
She will never
breathe
again
or, or
brush her hair
or watch silly shows on television
or fix breakfast
or worry about her daughter.
She’s alone now.
In a room
where it’s okay
to be cold.
Her hair
lies in quiet curls
against her head.
Her eyes focused
on family
I can’t see.
The dark corridors
of death
are lined with
my shortcomings.
I am lost and alone
in the space
surrounding her
missing life.
My life
is a series of memories –
of mom in the kitchen,
of dad’s disappearance.
But they’re not real,
my memories.
All lies.
I wash away
like a sand castle
as the tide comes in,
leaving broken shells
and scattered seaweed.
Every story I’ve ever told
a myth,
a cloud drifting by.
Not a girl
who was born
and grew up
and can now die
of sadness for never
really being alive.
Beauty’s legend persists,
skin glistening after a bath,
in sadness, lies its head against your breast.
Hidden in the shadows,
a beast awaits to impose a deadline
when beauty will be gone forever.
My heart is woven with the blood of others.
Perfect dance partners.
He doesn’t look back.
He never looks back.
A hole the size of the world
blows right through us.
Give me pain.
Give me something.
Give me a reason to stay.
sometimes she doesn’t
remember me
her daughter
a shadow visible
only in darkness
* * *
A star dies, but its light keeps us company,
its death unmourned for generations.
I feel sad to see the sparkle.
The moon invokes madness, its light hurts my eyes.
I search for Cassiopeia
on her tortuous throne,
her beauty unrivaled.
Holding tight to my sanity, the moon passes over.
As we flame through the sky,
will anyone remember?
He wants to be her knight,
but she doesn’t need saving.
* * *
Boys before
kept her in tears,
kept her in chains.
Holes ripped
in the world
by their passion.
With you
she feels less
pain.
She feels
less.
The vampire princess asked him to join her
and he saw the light no more.
He was gentle once, before his soul was taken,
penning piles of pitiful sonnets filled with longing.
The dark girl found his gentleness charming,
but loved him even more when he was wicked.
So he was wicked.
Her perfect poet and provocateur
made powerful by blood and by love.
A century later, she abandoned him, and the heart
that ceased to beat the night she turned him
tore apart.
Only forbidden love began to mend
his heart’s tattered secrets. The Slayer.
A spirit so hot to the touch it burned him nightly.
She made him cry. She made him rage.
He was covered in her, consumed by her,
concerned for her.
He was in love and she wanted him dead.
He wanted to breathe her in, but he had no breath.
Here begins his journey to recover the soul
he lost so long ago. To give birth again to the poet within.
Cast out by false fathers
who profess love
but imprison creativity,
she finds herself in the company
of those she despises,
trying to hide her true face,
what’s bad inside her
legend told by fathers who seek
to keep their women weak.
The only weak woman
is the one
who doesn’t know herself.
Oh, tell me a story
of she who begins
unwanted and then is chosen.
Family.
Not those we are born to, but those who make us whole.
Not what tears us apart, but what ties us together.