in spite of everything -------------------------------------------
The clip and clop of her heel’s echoed off and away
From these tall walls of grey
An empty alley at night in the dark part of town
When the business transactions of the night
Become cash only purchases
She’s stilettos and lip rings
Short hair and thick breasts
She’s as soft as satin feathers
She’s coffee shops, polished porcelain,
And secure in the knowledge that she
Was gonna be somebody
She’s a beauty who should never walk alone at night
The kind of beauty who deserves protection
The kind that makes your throat dryer than a junkie’s cottonmouth
The kind of beauty that gets taken for granted
And weeded out like so many sidewalk dandelions
She turned the corner to a face she’d never see
A hand as tight as duct tape
Her muffled screams wouldn’t have helped anyway
Not at this time of night
Not here
This is where garbage cans are the only witnesses
Where fire escapes save nothing
Where rats scurry when stepped upon
And never before
Where condom wrappers outnumber newspapers
Where needles replace lollipops
And gunshots are merely commas
In an otherwise uninterrupted statement
This is where two weeks ago
A four year old girl was found
In a dumpster
Her throat slashed by a soup can lid
Her tongue dangling from her mouth
Like a asphyxiated worm
Trying to escape its own tomb
Neither jail nor death nor torture
Will ever bring justice
To this place
This is where in spite of everything
Flesh is only flesh
And nothing is off the market
If you know how to take it
She clawed at him
She bit him
She screamed fire like she was burning
He beat her in the face
With such force, she could hear her jaw crack down to her bleeding knee caps
Her nose shattered like an eggshell
Under each following fist
As he held her down among the broken glass and cigarette butts
She began to drift away
She saw her fifth birthday party
Her first awkward dance with a boy
She was in her lover’s arms
She was warm and safe
Content and happy
In a place so sacred
Even God must remove his shoes at the door
But even saints look the other way too often
Even God gets distracted sometimes
And it doesn’t matter whether he was gambling in the sky
Or giving a junkie another day
He let this happen
He let him break her
His hands were filthy
His hands were endless
A master at locks and keys
He moved like a professional
He opened her up
And put it in her
He marked her
And stained her inside
Forever
The kind that would never come out
Forever haunted and followed by that scent
There was a bus driver who would notice her absence
There would be calls waiting at home
No food for the cat
No earrings donned
No poetry written
No songs sung
None of it would happen
She had submitted to an eternity of shame
And laid limp as a broken china doll
As the streetlights flickered
Like rows and rows
Of dying fireflies
This is quite powerful. There are so many lines that I thought were great in their own right.
1. The kind of beauty that gets taken for granted
And weeded out like so many sidewalk dandelions
2. And gunshots are merely commas
In an otherwise uninterrupted statement
3. In a place so sacred
Even God must remove his shoes at the door
4. As the streetlights flickered
Like rows and rows
Of dying fireflies
Just to name a few.
Also, the idea of God being distracted is an interesting one.
It reminds me of a poem I read once about God not being in the Holocaust camps. God didn't allow it... God simply wasn't there. (not that this has anything to do w/your poem).
I think you place your words well.
I think this is as brutal as life can get at times.
It makes me sad that these things do happen.
Anyhoo, I am never good at offering anything than my thoughts. Just wanted you to know that it was read.
WOW. Good job at telling such a story. You created your own images in your own words (or at least in unique ones). And with there being so many works before ours, it is hard to find writers today who do those kinds of things. There were plenty of words, but not one of them wasted. Brilliant job at making my mind recreate your images. I loved it all, but I especially liked "And gunshots are merely commas
In an otherwise uninterrupted statement". So yeah, its a fav on my page.
I really teared up reading this. It's about an utterly heart-wrenching topic, and you convey this terror to the reader in a way that's both creative and feeling. Do you know what Emily Dickinson's definition of poetry was? If, reading it, you feel like your head was forcibly removed, you know it's poetry. Of course, those weren't her exact words, because I can't remember them word for word...but you get the point. In this poem, I felt as if my limbs were being forcibly removed. You tore my heart out with this piece.
Also, I love your descriptions. IN my opinion, there's nothing cliché about this. It's not an upfront woe is me, thing...but it is full of woe. And blood and guts and disaster. It's full of all the stuff people don't want to know exists, but does, and...oh...gawsh. This thing just stunned me. I like it. I love it. And, you, m'dear, need to keep writing! Don't give up. You've got a spark.
Submission Name: in spite of everything
