This was written for One Single Impression Prompt #38, Courage. It is not so much a poem, but a personal statement, written as a reaction to some things I’ve encountered at work. You don’t have to agree, but all I ask is that you read….and think.

-Nicole

————————————————-
I know that there are lines, and they cut through me. I know that there are armies, and they march across my heart. I know that there are loud cacophonies of protests and do-right demands and endless rah-rah-rah cheerleading to rouse up fear and loathing of imagined or created enemies – and I find myself responding with silence. And I am repulsed at my own desire to hide in the darkness of silent assent.

Which side of the line are you on?

I am asked this question day in and day out with loud words and louder stares. Forwarded e-mails. Unspoken assumptions that I agree with them, simply because I am too afraid to declare the line useless, null and void, a knife cutting through the heart of this country I love. A line I’m supposed to be on one side of. A line that tells me that I’m supposed to look through binoculars of mistrust and paranoia simply because she wears a hijab or he refuses to eat pork.

Which side of the line are you on?

I have no desire to play the “whose God is bigger than whose” game. I have no desire to pick up verbal arms and slay souls simply because they call out to a different soul, a different name in the vast azure expanses above us. I have no desire to shoot barbs with lips, teeth, tongue, fingers, fists, or feet.

Which side of the line are you on?

I know that in the end, I cannot betray my heart. I cannot, by remaining silent, let it hang out to dry and flap in the wind on clotheslines of shared communal hatred just to avoid incurring shared communal abhorrence, lest I become brittle with envy, want, and rage – the kind that bubbles up and tries to burn acid tears into your eyes but fails, resulting only in a pathetic campfire whimper of the soul. Brittle because of the silence I chose to cram into my mouth to avoid being a single, vibrant tree of spectral rainbows in a land of withered, nightmarish stalks.

Which side of the line are you on?

I am on the side of LOVE. I am on the side of FORGIVENESS. I am on the side of PEACE.

Because I remember a time when I stood alone, a brown soul amongst both lighter tones, burnt to a crisp black, buffeted by wind-blown verbal fires, slurs, and dirty looks. I remember twisting and screaming inside silent Hells, pulling abuse upon my back and heart for daring to talk of the girl I loved in the same breath as others would talk of the boys they loved. I remember incurring abuse for being the sore thumb…the girl who would not step in line…the freak.

So in the end, I know that I must once again stand alone, stand apart, stand as a traitor for reaching out a hand to link with shadows of their boogeymen, for refusing to ignite a fire of hatred in my heart to join with others to create a raging wall of Hell that will destroy us all.

Because those boogeymen, those shadows, those talked-up enemies…are fragile, human. Like me.

Like you.

So the next time you consider the line before you, ask yourself if you truly believe in that line. Ask yourself if you are comfortable with being cleaved asunder by joining in discordant tones with someone else’s choir of bigotry and ignorance.

Ask yourself…if that line even needs to be there in the first place.

Written 11/13/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This piece, which uses chained hay(na)ku inside, was written for Read Write Poem Prompt # 52: Face Your Fears and Do It With Oomph!

This poem, in essence, is “to be continued”, as I was very recently diagnosed with type II diabetes. It runs in my family. A very prominent member of my family died of complications one month short of her fiftieth birthday because she did not follow doctor’s orders, did not take her insulin, did not watch her sugar intake. When she died in October 2000, she had already had one heart attack, one or two toes amputated, and had been completely blind for five years prior to her death.

When I was diagnosed in September of this year, the first thing I thought of was how she died, and this spectre has been hanging over my head since my diagnosis. How am I facing the fear of going out like she did? Taking control of my blood sugar levels…and writing this poem, which is more or less a transcript of my mind when I began to catalog and reckon with my greatest fear to date. It’s a little different than anything I’ve tried before, so gentle reader, please bear with me as I take you along for the ride.

-Nicole

———————————————–

daylight
has faded
only night remains
a banshee’s song
in my
ears

[this is the end]

and
a man
left alone inside
a vast wilderness
without my
love

[my only friend, the end]

there
will be
no more stories
no more poems
no more
songs

[of our elaborate plans]

you
lay me
low, sugar rivers
of bloodstream madness
emptying into
tissue

[of everything that stands]

steal
my life
steal my skin
and wear it,
coins over
eyes

[no safety or surprise]

crumble
an ancient
paper doll girl
sugar burned skin
missing toes
blind

[i'll never look into your eyes again]

then
early expiration
like mislabeled milk
wicked libations poured
down the
drain

[driver, where you takin' us?]

inside
my genes
this betrayal began
softly, slowly, sharpening
diabetic carnivorous
teeth

[the killer awoke before dawn]

the killer was inside me all along

Written 11/7/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson EXCEPT items in italics and brackets, which are excerpted from “The End” and © 1967 The Doors. All Rights Reserved on portions of this work authored by N. Nicholson.

Stumble It!

-Nicole
———————————————–
crimson stains
on white petals
of fist-wide flowers
open white palms to the sky
broad, smiling, innocent
unaware that they are stained
unaware that blood has rained
upon their faces

life and death
frozen together in one moment
the innocence of the snowy petals
against the innocence of the owners
of the blood

souls gone
which beat the flowers to the corporeal
finish line
too soon
a stained September
too soon

the flowers will remember
they bloom below the windows
of Pinochet’s palace
they bloom beside the hinges
of Gaza’s gates
and they bloom in the gardens
shadowed in undertow
next to the empty lots
where the towers once stood

we must remember
that September
is not ours alone in sorrow
but lest we forget
the flowers will remember
all of these Septembers

Written 8/10/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

I had been thinking about this piece since Monday. This title was turning over and over again in my brain; I ended up writing it for Three Word Wednesday, since this week’s words, “million”, “time”, and “unnoticed”, lent themselves well to my churning thoughts. Enjoy.

-Nicole
—————————————————–
A million voices have weaved themselves together. They lie as chaotic tapestry, matted hair, within the recesses of my brain. I can no longer distinguish who said what and when, but unlike erased and empty chalkboards which bare nothing but black blankness, my mind holds on to ghost strand memories. I see the placeholders of words, but only as faint outlines containing invisible space.

With time, they grow even fainter. When I was twenty-five, it was who and when that I could still recall, but the what had begun to fade out of the middle of its still frame memory. Now at thirty-two, the when is a slowly eroding shoreline giving way to forgetful waters. I fear that someday, the sum total of what is left of my mental substance, my acuity, and even the substance of who I am, will drown in these waters as more of these memories disappear and die.

Yet each day, one more letter, one more word, one more sentiment, slips away into the abyss, unnoticed. It is only when I go back to retrieve the memory that I notice what is missing. It is then I see jigsaw puzzles of faces, places, things said to me, and things I said staring back, but incomplete with jarring, empty holes in each puzzle…and I can no longer find the missing pieces. I want to dive my desperate fingers under divine couch cushions and coffee tables to find them.

But I know that permanence is a pathetic myth, and transience is closer to the biggest truth engulfing our Universe – and that truth is that we are always dying. The words told to me in love, anger, and sorrow will eventually die too as I cross the thresholds of decades. One day, all I will have left are the outlines of faces.

Written 8/6/08
© 2008. Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This sestina was written for this week’s Three Word Wednesday prompt: to use the words “narrow”, “history”, and “spent”. Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————————–
History may record the firecracker chaos
born of steel wills clashing in these
Birmingham streets, the clashing of love
and hate, bigotry and tolerance, law
enforcers and law breakers. It may speak
of water hoses, dogs, nightsticks, angry

old men with fear-chiseled faces, and angry
women upholding banners of hatred; of chaos
created when men and women dare to speak
of a new future but are yet opposed by these
hoses, dogs, clubs, people, and unjust law;
and hands, shoulders, and wills joined in love,

forming bridges and walls. Yet of our love
history may not speak, but we still confront angry
words and stares outside, and ancient, dusty law
which all but forbids our love. I hold hot chaos
in my heart; it swirls and scalds, the result of these
wounds of wicked hatred. I don’t dare speak

lightly of our love, but I will dare to speak
to widen dark alleys within narrow minds. Love
compels me, love propels me, to speak these
truths, truths that bind me to you against angry
protest, even from my family. I’ll take the chaos,
I’ll take the pain, I’ll take the risk of offending law

and parents. I can only live by one law,
and that is the law of love; so I will speak
your name in public spaces and brace for chaos;
I will cling to you in daylight, and I will love
you. What else can I do? I’ve spent angry
currency in your defense, I’ve spent these

nights with you under moonlight, and these
daytimes by your side, watching as law
and people try to cut you down with angry
swords of words and denials. I now speak
of forever, of shoulders strengthened by love
as mountains to lean upon and weep, of chaos

spent like dollars when we made love. These
and other moments make me speak against
angry people, unjust law, and moral chaos.

Written 7/16/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This was a sedoka written for Read Write Poem Prompt #35: “fun in the sun” (NOT!). Here is my take. Enjoy.

-Nicole
————————————————————————
released from the jaws
of school, time was now my own
to sculpt summer freedom with

twenty years later
loneliness wraps around me
in emptied, silent school halls

Written 7/11/08
&copy 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

This was written for Three Word Wednesday; today’s three words were: inappropriate, order, and shortcut. This was also inspired by this post I read on Paisley’s blog, “My Rose”. Enjoy.

-Nicole

I’m half here. The half of me that is here functions robotically as an android on autopilot, following in exact order a set of preprogrammed instructions: get up, shower, dress, apply makeup, style her hair, eat breakfast, go to work, go home, cook dinner, and eat. At the end of this daily sequence, she falls into her soft bed, all the while hoping it will turn into a cotton soft cloud and she will awake the next morning in Heaven above instead of on Earth below. I read her programming and try to pen poetry from gems hidden in its ordinary, everyday dirt.

I’m half here. The other half that is not here journeys as far as her mind will take her. She has taken shortcuts through the astral plane to get to her marvelous midnight – and daylight – destinations. She has visited every corner of the world, in every era of time since humans could tell stories, link to link, through epic poetic chains or written histories penned by men and women lucky enough to have been taught how to read and write. She has watched ravens roost atop of the tower of London. She has strolled down the Champs-Elyseés and drunk in the beautiful mad mélange of cafés, shops, and people ranging from the common to the fabulous to the freaks. She saw Cleopatra sacrifice her life on the fangs of a cobra. She saw Simon Peter in his darkest hour deny Jesus as he walked the silent bloody path to his crucifixion. She watched Ghandi survey the blood-soaked ground of Amritsar. And she has seen much more than this. These exploits are stamped into her brain; I pull them off in long filmstrip rolls to examine the content of her journeys and then sing what she’s seen in lines of poetry.

I’m half here. Yet, I know that it’s inappropriate to keep on half-living. The android wants to have the fun that I’ve denied her by relegating her to live the cold gray instructions of an autopilot life. The adventurer’s brain is now drained of color and dream, and she needs rest. I know that someday, I must somehow unite the android with the adventurer, the flesh with the spirit, the responsible woman with the insane, whimsical kook – and take them both with me, wherever I go.

Written 7/9/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

-Nicole

—————————————–
If you wonder why I’m indifferent
to your attempts at kindness or love,
then I’ll be glad to give you a reason –

you disconnected.

You went off into your own little world,
leaving me to fend for myself in a house
where I was:

one more burden,
one more mouth to feed,
one more expense, and
one more worry.

I learned to live in the shadows,
and I still retreat there sometimes,
wrapping them like a cloak around me

so that no one will see me,
no one will notice me, and
no one will hurt me.

I can become invisible instantly now,
a fraction of myself reduced down
to just the common denominator of being human –

but I’m afraid that one day I will become so
invisible that I will never reappear in flesh
to rejoin this vibrant, mad world.

I leave
behind these leaves,
these poems,
these raven feathers
to make sure that just in
case I do disappear, that I have left
something worthwhile behind,
something to let the world know that I was here.

Do you think that I can just forget how
I was asked to disappear, how I was broken
apart, melted, and then poured into
the mold of a perfect young girl with:
gleaming white teeth that always lined a smile,
rivers of straight-A only report cards,
and a blank clean slate of innocence
with never a dirty thought or deed?

And then you – you try to pour me
into the mold
of a woman without tragedy, trauma, or drama.

You can’t handle my darkness.
You can’t handle the reminder
of how I am now forever scarred.
You should be thankful that
I wear these scars in my heart and that
I didn’t decide to carve them into my
caramel skin in the language of desperation and pain –
screams of wordless bloody slashes that
the whole world could see.

I scream in poetry, and
I scream in art,
because I was once forbidden
to scream.

You will never understand my screams;

so f*** off
and go find the
fragrant, flower, fairy fantasies
you desire without me.

Written 7/2/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

-Nicole
————————————-
division -
my heart
cleaved in two

an
ache travels
its septic split

I
guard this
tender raw wound

with
an aloof
tight-lipped mystery

If
I retire
my heart’s sentry

and
show you
this ancient wound

will
you stop
its fatal bleeding?

Written 6/28/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!