Classroom Sonnet I

I sit alone in my classroom

When the thought of the buttons on your shirt

Open, like a bud on the brink of its spurt,

Comes to my mind like a flower in full bloom.

And then I see you smile, and I wonder at whom.

For a smile that bright and shining seems too overt,

That smile, giving sunlight to the daisies on my skirt,

Is a thought just too indulgent to consume.

And then I realize that I’m exactly right.

That believing a smile that tender, that sweet,

Could be aimed at me? Why, who would I cheat

But myself? Willfully walking without any sight.

Because anyone with eyes can easily see,

That my daisies are withered, and that you never smile at me.

Longing

My love is in longing.

In darkness,

In wide empty spaces

Of possibility.

In depth, in distance,

In absence

Of your voice

Of your face

Of your hands

Of our being.

Alive

It starts at what was my collarbone./ A jagged, sharp cut/ Traveling to the center of my rigid chest/ Hacking at the ridges on the way/ Down my midsection,/ Tearing metal./ The noise,/ Like car parts dragging against concrete ground,/ Drowns out the pain I hoped to finally feel./ It all seems to have been working toward this./ As if my bolts and screws were fastened/ Solely for the purpose of being torn out./ I don’t think of it as cruelty/ Because when it’s over,/ And I’ve been completely opened,/ A thin sheet of metal flutters down the silver lining of my rib cage/ And lands,/ Barely making a sound.

-Nathalie D.