looking through the window
i learn to believe
that the tree is never still
& i sigh,
turning from the pane
i make myself tea
while thinking of the spring days
when you’d hold me,
rocking in our hammock
i learn to believe
that the tree is never still
& i sigh,
turning from the pane
i make myself tea
while thinking of the spring days
when you’d hold me,
rocking in our hammock
All you truly need is God, they say
as if life could ever be so simple.
I stopped hearing God’s voice when I started
realizing that I could no longer trust myself
to the people I once thought closest to me.
Blind to my rage or deaf to my cries,
the fact remains that there is an evil
creeping into this belabored heart of mine,
and all the alarms I’ve been throwing out
still fly unreceived through all the skies.
Give me an answer:
how loud does a man have to scream
to raise himself up from the cracks of society
so many step so casually over,
or are the cracks what make up early graves?
The harder you have to fight just to survive
is the further you may fall from your morals.
The man who gets collectively ignored
can one day become the most sinister ordeal
if he fails to keep his humanity whole.
Behind every monster or tragic headline
is a person who was meant to love the broken more completely,
for nobody breaks without signs of weakness
no matter how good they are at hiding.
Perfection’s a myth, even in the negative.
There, self-reflection becomes my immaculate salvation;
the ability to receive my own alarms
which then translate into a sense of purpose–
to listen for the echoes of failure in a heart,
being so intimate with how it breaks.
It may feel similar
To a dull blade
pushing into your chest
Pumping pain from your heart
but just remember who you do it for
then remember
their room is littered with pictures
of themself
The Ohio River stretches a mile wide.
Her eddies and currents, highway
To Tall Stacks, their paddle wheels laboring
The length from Pittsburg to the New Orleans,
Slapping the water while steam engines
Shoot black soot across the sky.
Here is where women learned to wear long pants
And men learned to let them.
Society arrived but only at the end of a gun.
Today’s festival brings clean boats,
painted white and red stacks
A celebration of our beginnings
When we slaughtered pigs, traded pelts,
Brewed beer in the German tradition.
In those days, boats were not clean, not white.
Their decks stained red from their slaughterhouse cargo and clay.
In spring, rain washed the docks,
Clearing them of industry’s price and smell,
Leaving her own perfume,
Rich, thick and sticky
Like the mud on long shore boots.
Washing downstream to the Mississippi to New Orleans
Where the sea swallowed our bones
And kept our secrets.
Alyse Sammarco
June 2, 2021
I remember it all
How you once told me a name
The name of your fictional sub shop
“The place you brunch when you’re following a hunch”
The way your right cheek slowly curled into a grin
But tentatively, as if anchored by tiny hooks
Held by tiny men
Careful not to betray self-satisfaction
How I saw the beginnings of that grin
And decided to eradicate it
Out of pure pettiness
Because I wasn’t in the mood
Because I was having a crummy day, who knows
It’s the only part that remains elusive
But the way your grin faltered and faded
That I can recall, as if it were my first kiss
The way your eyes glazed over, retreated
With the rest of you, away from me
Your refusal to utter another word
Every trip home
I hope to pass by your shop
I promise to recommend it
To every friend, acquaintance and sleuth I know
But I will never sully its walls
Because it’s a place
“For those with more gumption than the rest of the bunch.”
Maybe there’s one more thing
That’s lost to me
Why didn’t I just say that?
There’s something about
rain that’s comforting.
Not how it allows
tributaries of
tenuous teardrops
to whittle oceans
of debris away,
nor even how it
permits the wretched
substances raging
against windowpanes,
street lamps, gutters, to
be wiped, whipped away.
In how its esse
settles in my bones,
seeps into my soul,
sketching out a home
where so little else
has been able to.
a cicada is in the vents a shrew might hide in the blanket and feed on crumbs
my cats know where their room is they know where the food is
it’s crazy this is happening to me maybe a manic state or a karmic slate but it’s the truth i feel otherworldly
cats nails clack on fake wood mine crack on technology
something is happening that i’m missing
i make choices every day but i can’t let this body sustain life
mother becomes their mother becomes their mother i don’t want to become mine
never thought i looked like her but i did the whole time
Brown floral sofa
Late at night
Pillow grabbed
Television stays on
It’s really scratchy
And it’s really loud in a muffled way
But it would be louder with it off
Voices strangled a 10-year-old me
They stayed for such a long time
TV’s and radios muted everything
It was so hard to escape
Screaming, guilt, bruises
Wet faces, bloody noses
And a mind so wrecked
Waking up
A mouse in my shirt
A mouse crawling on my arm
Mice everywhere taking over the couch
Convincing myself, don’t scream
Don’t scream
They’re not there
But you are
