I lied. One teenage angsty poem.
Am I still breathing? I never could tell.
Do you breathe when you're gone? I wanted to know.
I slipped into slumber not to be awakened.
Ever. Never. Never again.
Just as I used to try to remember
my very last thoughts before drifting to sleep,
I tried to remember that very last breath,
but my mind was an ember when it came,
or didn't come, I can't quite remember.
Am I still breathing? I never could tell.
I never could breathe with her hand on my mouth,
pushed against my face so hard
that it was disfigured and my nose was too close to
my mouth to her hand and I still wasn't breathing,
but then I could tell, because if I'd been breathing,
each exhalation would have been filled
with everything from cries of hatred
to the sadness of being broken again.
Ever, never, never again.
Wanting to breathe, wanting to cry.
Wanting to stop being saved from myself.
Wanting, wanting. Breathing, breathing.
I am still breathing, but where? I don't know.
I know that I am because of the light.
It's something between sixty watts and god
but it's closer to god 'cause it's blinding my eyes
and I feel like a child all over again.
And then I remember I swallowed the pills,
but that very last breath just never came,
and that is my stomach flowing into the bucket
labeled hazardous waste and they've pumped out my dreams.
And I see her hand, the hand that once held me,
now trying to catch dim tears that are falling,
falling like footsteps in hallways at midnight
back in the time when I was alone.
I'm ever falling, ever midnight,
ever, never, never alone.
Copyright 2004 by Cordelia Ridley
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