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Laura Chowanski

The October Editor's Pick Poet is Laura Chowanski

Please feel free to email Laura at xcentricchow@gmail.com

Laura

THE BOX AT HER FEET

The shell of a woman broken and lost:
Carries her heart in a cardboard box.

Pulsing with life, the jewel sits inside,
Trading her love and her life for her pride.

A warrior once tough, sturdy and strong,
Turned to ashes when the love of her life
Had since gone.

Heartbroken and sorry for the seeds she had sown
Sobbing for treasures,
She no longer owns.

In the frozen moonlight she stands, wounded and pleading,
Giving anything for a new life worth the leading.

She laid her broken dreams at the souls of her feet,
A pain rose in her gut with every heartbeat.

Protecting the most valuable piece of her soul,
Mourning her life’s blood
Alone in the cold.

Through the forest he came on that dark, winter’s night,
Demanding, “Trade your humanity for my life.”

Their eyes met and held in a smoldering stare,
It was not for her, for whom he would care.

The darkness was charming, but stealing her will,
Gifts she possessed,
He would take or would kill.

He would not be denied; it showed on his face,
His fangs were her wounds she needed to embrace.

With hope all but gone: her tears to be damned,
The undead snatched her heart and took her life,
— Under his command.

Though she was human she survived the nightmare,
She would gain strength and courage
Or drown in despair?

Was it fate that brought a shattered life and the life-less to meet?
Or the screams emanating from the box at her feet.

GOOD-BYE

I had no idea how easy the bones would break
The make-up would run
That there’d be no moon light
Or my shade of lipstick would look orange in the dark.

I had no idea poison would softly creep through the tall, dead, grass straining toward the last drop of blood
Entwine together
A piano string snug against a rapid pulse
Composing a memory of torment and loss.

I had no idea the stones are cold this time of year
After the green boarder of the deep dark forest suffocates
Blowing open the doors to unsettling possibilities.

Ghosts and wide-eyed toddlers dance on tombstones
As the granite crumbles
And the cold wind blows.

HIS SONG

The lyrics of His song slide down the blood from my ears and die
Rainbows give me cotton-candy migraines
Chocolates are poisonous and full of my lack of interest
Worms crawl out of the red crevices around His eyes that blow smoke in my face
Stagnant pale ale breath
Intoxicated notes puncture a lung
Drive sanctimonious nails into my heart that bleeds
Endgame of a blackened ticker wrapped in a song that gives me hives
To die would be a sweet sound of heavy metal loaded with chemical additives
Escape the never-ending-loop of hallucinated voices and repetitive crap
Maybe if I vomit my objections the drummer will eat it up and gag
Rip out my blue fingernails with rusty infected beats
Always to suffer
The only way to stop His endless fucking jam is to sever fingers
Blood trickles down the neck of his ax
Box cutters bleed
Mincing raw flesh and bone to discourage re-attachment
My rage is silent
How many chords can you play with two fingers?
A pinkie and a thumb
He softly strums a whiney bitter song of violent loss and unfulfilled dreams
I lick the blood from my jubilant sticky fingers
Oh
Poor Him

Laura Chowanski lives in New England. There is no telling how many bodies are buried in the woods of her dreams.