Alison Gerhard
AN OBSESSIVE-CONFESSIONAL
The first thought I had that I had lost my mind was when
instead of sounds
there were echoes.
Echoes,
that close to the close
would go on, and on, and on,
and on
like some song refrain sung strange
no refraining restraining the sounds that fall
from cracked lips
like
rain;
I should have, I should have, I should have, I should have, I should have
I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't
I can't I can't I hate I hate I hurt
Oh God.
Oh God. Oh God I know.
I know
no
more
quiet places.
I miss the sweet whispers of silence no minds lost no violence in thought
that reminds us of Pontius Pilate, that bastard.
I can't understand how he washed his hands
with such
ease
while I'm freezing in endless repeating and bleating and bleeding.
* * *
PUNCTUATION
I hang like punctuation off
the end of my own thoughts.
Somedays I am
the breath between words, too.
* * *
JOY RIDES
Forests don't look like
horizons
on nights where the
tail lights are the
twilight's
stars,
more like
tattered edges
of
fraying
silk skies.
No one takes joyrides anymore.
Still
we outrun our
headlights
on unlit roads
echoing
reflections
in the eyes
of the deer
on the median,
not
quite like fireflies
more like
moths drawn
onwards
to chew at the
hem
of the
world.
Alison Gerhard is a researcher and disability activist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is currently
completing her master's degree in inorganic chemistry. This is her first publishing.
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