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Heidi Therrien
Breaking Other Boys for my father
They thought we were rucksacks.
pieces of metal sagged at our necks upon orders we broke formation-crumbled into dust choked life from everything we touched
the compartments of our minds as purposeful as our pockets filled with mother’s tears our family voice was a foreign face and we saluted goodbye
the time passed because we shot it we took the gun and pushed it through the clock’s soft skull sediment left behind
when the shots were fired we ran into them counting bullet shells like birthday candles
boys in a sandbox breaking other boys who wanted to be the strange Supermen of our childhood
we few walking gravestones we once backpacks who traded for a gun blind faith followers reaching for a different sun
now we stand boys against the weather biting blindly against the sand
we stone cold grave stones digging our own death our honor our freedom our childhood dreams
then we return home with sandpaper kisses and dusty breath and broken hands and broken faces and sour bodies and blank canvas'
They thought we were rucksacks. We were men.
And our hearts were not meant
to turn purple
Stones Inspired by The Stones of Summer
I sit on a makeshift bed scribbling letters about a man who gave himself to me in the form of books ‘Here’ he said ‘these are my children, take good care of them, especially these two.’ he placed books of paper on my cardboard hand and I let him down so many times twisted his veins into forget-me-knots and smiled
we never finished having that baby
I read the books pile by pile now kiss the paper slits and keep the red runoff in viles on the window that window laughs at me every morning
unemployed during late spring early summer and the window judges me shades its lid half down and mouth slightly agape breezing disapproval chilled resting
but that man and I have plans to run to Iowa and drown in the nostalgia flashing us back to the book like gusts of brave wind on the way somewhere they’ve been a hundred times before but not like this we are bronze now we are something better than trophy we fix our own breaks now with words and tongue and each lick of sound is a page in our own book and we never pay for it
On The Breaking Mourning
Fruit. He was a fruit. He was a fruit that spoiled when you looked at him. His spoiled smell carried bruises from lover's hands. We handed him a knife. He figured out the rest.
Heidi Therrien is a poet and painter from Manchester, NH. Her poems have appeared in journals such as, The 2010 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire, Blood on the Floor Vol: II, Centripetal, Angelic Dynamo and her chapbook, and High Point of My Day, which was published Sargent Press. A finalist for the 2009 NH slam team, her writing group, Blood on the Floor, won the 2008, 2009, and 2010 New England Invitational Poetry Slam in Portland, ME, as well as was one of the featured poets at the 2009 Jazzmouth Poetry Festival. She has performed with David Amram, performed on the radio, and has been featured around the seacoast at venues such as The Northstar Café, Beat Night at the Press Room, The Bridge Café, Lowell Café, and The Stone Pigeon, which she currently hosts. |
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Dark Lady Poetry, 2010. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 2152-8594