Life is Poetry: IV

I followed your eyes

I see

the wall in front

smooth and warm

the one behind

reveals the illusion

2 more face east

then west

I in the middle

neither separate nor apart

these walls Carry me

I breathe air in their lungs

pump blood to the veins

neither alive nor dead

Pain holds its hostage

restrains the truth

reveals the mask

Who could resist the opportunity

to walk away?

scared you back to your "mess"

your empty concerns

stir up only contempt

from these joints

shaking anger out of careful structure

Vulnerability is my secret

I’ve held it for thirty years

like a hot iron branding my hands

Scars are all I have,

where people used to be.

Sarah Jenkins

Life is Poetry: III

heart on her Sleeve

Oh thy humid, curly wave

Cascading down her lovely face

As ivy on your brick façade

divulge that Deliberate gaze

What joy or pain

Remains within?

Relinquish thy black remorse in thoughts

That act like knives against my throat

Choking air from breath

See the Lilies planted there

Waving brightly in tempest rain

Unyielding in strength and prose

Vitality growing through clay soaked earth

Soften thy look

On monotonous life and a dreamer’s love

Relax the hands that hold so tight

Anxiously straining to control,

even the weeds in thy path

Faith is felt in your heart,

Teaching thy mind to trust

  

Sarah Jenkins

Life is Poetry II

on the cusp of the Harvest

your impious words

stain my skin

like permanent marker

bleeding

along the outside (walls) layers

of my (prison) body

that took three decades to (hide) build

rage rises in my chest

air is trapped

half-breaths make it to my mouth

i fight to form

the (write) right words

defying the impulse

to release my (faith) defense

the indecision decomposes

in my (soul) mortal body

i am weak with anger

further broken by my (codependency) unfortified barricade

loneliness permeates through

this hollow perception

Sarah Jenkins