"FACINGFACES 2002 - 04" SELECTED POETRY

THE ROPE

Because of your touch my life is forever changed.
My entire self image has been rearranged.
Your hands should have protected, Instead they projected,
Nightmares and bad memories. I am forever effected.
Your lips should have whispered loving words set in soft tones.
Instead they only pushed through vile sounds, breathless moans.
Your skin should have smelled of Irish Spring and Cologne
Instead my mind is implanted with the stench of foul sweat and hormones.
I should have been playing with my childhood friends.
Instead of satisfying the fetishes of a much older man.
Your life was shattered that day my voice rose.
I may have tightened the noose, but you strung the rope.
Every strand woven by your heavy hands.
The knot tied more tightly with every sickening demand.
I hope your breath leaves you much slower than my innocence did.
May you feel the same suffocation that I did as a kid.
When you get to hell may you be stripped of your soul.
The way you stripped me of mine at only 8 years old.
I think, what a coward, as you swing to and fro.
Mouth hung wide open , feet dragging the floor.
Hanging from the noose of the rope that you wove.



CALM AFTER THE STORM


See, light as it shines through the cracked door.
Smell, the liquor on his breath and through his pores.
Taste the bitterness of his forbidden kiss.
Feel, hands creeping, slowly, through your hair, over your breast.
Winds whirl though you, like a tornado of senses.
Shivering from the cold.
His glare strikes you, it is lightning.
You hear the thunder of his moans.
Then comes the rain,
Pouring, streaming, staining your pillow.
Staining your soul.


Daylight breaks, you awake.
The window, sun dancing on its sill,
Cracked to invite the warm summer breeze.
The ballerina dances on the crisp white fabric.
The smell of cut grass.
The calm after the storm.


Jennifer Beth Burnett
USA
copyright 2002

Jen@imprisonedwords.com
www.imprisonedwords.com