Published in Death Wish Poetry Magazine Issue #1: Birth Pangs https://deathwishpoetry.com/magazine/# (Check out the online magazine to see some really cool cover art they’ve created for my poems)
Author Bio: Danielle lives on Long Island, NY, and goes to school in NYC as a Graduate student at Hunter College. She has a BA in Creative Writing (with a minor in Religion). These poems are part of a collection of poetry Danielle wrote between the ages of 14-17. She is 24, and lives to tell the tale!
Trigger Warnings: Suicidal Ideation, Self-Harm, EDs
Reflection
I feel it again –
A soul splintering
Through perosis bones;
Explosives splattering
Inside a shivering skull—
There looks
To be galaxies
On the moon.
The pop
Of stars and meteors
On such unwilling girls,
The cataclysmic shock
Of beauty
Bore on our shoulders,
The debris
Can turn us beautiful with
Just a pinch
Of pain,
We are begging
For it.
We’re all one and the same,
A sex for the sole
Purpose of man’s
Release—
I am not hurt,
I am just girl,
Just a silly blur
Of life.
I see the flashing
Of ambulance lights
In front of our collective pleas
And our devils;
Only a few seconds til it’s over.
Wet socks and period
Thongs
Cover my floor;
Photographs
To remember why
I tried being alive,
Shaped by silhouettes
Of fellowship
But inked by memories
Of only me
At the end of the night.
College merch and
Festival stuffed animals
Highlight the flesh
Surrounding me;
To torment me,
To tell me I am human.
Scars on my wrist
Place me back
In reality;
I am still here.
An accidental
Glance in the mirror
Shows shards
Of melting skin –
I look like a gun
Without a trigger,
A cold metal
Bang
Without
The pierced jewel
Adorning my forehead.
It was time
And time again
That I looked it in the eyes.
Death – she
Has the same hair as me.
__________________________________
Flawless
Layers
Of lipid-thick blood
Leak out of me
On my account,
Onto napkins hid
Under the bedside table;
Napkins heavy tonight,
Heavy with skin.
Heavy like weight
On scales and
In mirrors, the only
Thing
That clings to
Me.
Heavy like overstuffed
Souls
Tranced on the couch
After dessert—
They’ll wake
Soon, wanting out
Of this body.
Heavy like comforters
In the peak of summer,
Tucked over me
To be reminiscent
Of human.
I’ve tried to clean myself up for you:
Neosporin and napkins and
Calorie deficits and runs
Around the block at 2am.
But I’m scared
To lose the endorphins
Of binge, to lose
The fat and cellulite
And be left with the
Loneliness.
Doped on midnight cereal and
Tauntful thoughts
Of your rapacious hands
Hugging smaller waists,
I empty myself
Of veins overflowing,
Less blood; less volume;
Less sad.
I’ll be left
Flesh and bones
And flawless.
__________________________________
Shed
The scars
Up my arm
Keep fading;
They’re fading like
My pain
Is only a temporary
Part of me,
But I’m so hurt –
I’m so sad and so settled
In this somber place and
They’re all I have
To show for it.
I can cut deeper
Now that I’m older –
Now that heartbreak has
Aged me, now that
I’ve got a more firm
Conception of
My own worthlessness,
A more solid confirmation
Of your wanting
To shed me off of you, a more
Grounded explanation
As to why.
I can do better, I can
Slice with more conviction,
It is
Only
My skin.
I can bleed heavier, watch
The blood drip
More stout, like the love
I gave
And lost.
It’s somewhere in the way
You touch my skin
With such
Cold hands
That feeds me
The same chill
Of pencil sharpener blades
And broken pieces of
Cracked mirrors
Fom my high school
Backpack,
Oh, the things that are
In habit of
Bringing me
Back from the dead.
Over a
Red-stained sink
Is where I best
Think I can
Let you go –
Where I most
Want to pluck you off me
Like a dead end from my hair;
You torment, you fungus, you
Parasite, you’re doing this to me
See,
I don’t need you to
Hurt me
When I have the gut,
The heart-wrenching strength,
The magnanimous
Audacity
To hold the
Blade myself.
