free verse

Unlike You: a Poem

“Unlike you . . .” a prompt from Kay A.

In less than a month,
unlike you to care about the wreckage of the Titanic that is my heart.
I have witnessed you stampede on
and trample me barefoot.
Yet,
the teeth you bared is what
I have come to expect.

Family taught me
(for better or worse)
to murder with mercy.
When you were flashing your baby teeth,
sharpening like knives,
I was practicing my smiles
in polished glass.

Unlike you to offer condolences
or express empathy,
and yet, the past few days,
while Lazarus has been in the tomb,
a different side of you has been exposed.

Unlike you to show warmth,
still a reptilian cold underneath,
but the air is a bit milder now – less frost,
less chill.

Unlike you to offer benevolence and yet,
a crack of a smile,
a beginnings of generosity.

Is it possible you were murdered by my mercy?
Killed by my kindness?

Or did New Year’s resolutions just fall
a few days behind on this calendar?

I’m not one to gaze the gift horse
in the mouth,
but I do have my suspicions
when you were flashing those fangs,
honing them like knives,
and are now sweet as spun sugar.

Just call me Doubting Thomas
if your kindness only lasts as long as
Lazarus was in the tomb.

Isabelle Palerma

A Cage for Your Heart, the Softness of Sadness, and the Gentle Lull of Love: a Poem

An architect constructed you a mansion
for your heart and you called it a cage.
He crafted each room with so much caution
and care.

The muscle nestled between your ribs
felt like a boulder I was incapable of swallowing,
I am a myth,
tugging on strings that have strangled me.

My fantasies were polished glass shards
shattered by laments and heartbreak.
Ancestors draped mirrors
with black organza in bereavement
after a loved one died.
The fabric is as light as a ghost,
so tell me,
how did I still I wake up with
bits of glass crunching beneath my feet?

The sadness was a fragile creature –
the weight of black organza –
and yet I am a myth,
desiring nothing more than to pull
the strings that choke me.

But it’s gentle sometimes,
sneaking in like a moth,
as soft as a ballerina’s skin
and barbed wire.

Our wires danced across the dance floor,
and if you watch,
we might just choke on the memory,
the softness of sadness, and
the gentle lull of love.

Isabelle Palerma

Nostomania: a Poem

“A deep longing for home — not just as a place, but as a feeling.”

This rampant desire seizes a deep part of me
like breath
(nearly as important as the inhalation/exhalation
my lungs have been known to practice daily).

I have searched for belonging in places,
in persons unfamiliar as though the answers
would simply arrive.
I grew up in a house that was beautiful,
but I felt like I was sleeping in hotel paper.

I have sought something deeper
than the flimsy doilies and brocade curtains.
Something I could place more value in
than porcelain dolls purchased for me
(without a single consideration
into my interests, my passions).

I have wished for something that birthday candles
could not even begin
to scratch the surface of.

If I told you,
perhaps you’d laugh.
An orphan does not have a family,
you would remind me,
as I introduce you to my mother and father,
my brothers and their wives,
the grandmothers and grandfathers,
all the cousins and aunts and uncles.
Poverty does not look like all of this.

(Then,
why did I feel so empty?)

Homelessness does not come
when you have shelter,
a roof over your head.

(But then, explain why
I only found a home
when I found someone who loves me
unconditionally.)

Isabelle Palerma

Runner: a Poem

I’m writing absences where
your heart used to lie,
lacunae where stars used to soar.
You were my sanctuary,
& I thought I believed in
forever.

None of this is broken,
but sometimes, parts of me
fracture.

Every time I try to write,
memories of who I was or
who I could be resurrect
like Lazarus from a tomb.

My skin is barely hanging on my body & I have grown frail.
My desires are no longer carnal,
and my rage no longer violent.
(She told me the years would soften me like overripe fruit,
and I denied it like my hard edges
have an advantage.)

Now, here we are at the gates
and Peter interrogates me —
he asks me why I harbored so much hate,
but even if I have forgiven,
I couldn’t be lace and be defined by my empty spaces.

I feel like I’ve ruptured,
and a part of me will never be the same.
I’ve said it before, so maybe I’ll say it again,
a fabulist isn’t always a liar —
sometimes, just a storyteller.

I followed this line until it fractured
and you taught me about the
fault lines I never grew up along.
He asked me if I still smell like
autumn,
and people clamored to say
hazelnut coffee or brittle fall leaves.
I never knew who I was,
only what others saw.

I couldn’t be lace.
I read through the doctor’s notes
and they all diagnosed me the same –

a tired cliché.

This isn’t Plath nor will it ever be,
but the most I can ever ask for
is someone to love me as I am,
to take me into their arms,
and not to simply tolerate –
not to merely accept –
but to cherish, to celebrate,
to worship, & to love.

You gathered all these different parts of me,
all the different eras,
and you saw who I was reflected through each,
and you swore you’d stay
(as long as I didn’t push too hard).

I’ve been pushing people away
for centuries now,
and I’m tired.

This certainly isn’t the poem I started,
but now that you see me clearly,
tell me –
will you be the one to run?

Isabelle Palerma

A Poem from Those Left Behind

A flame was never meant to extinguish this abruptly. Starved of oxygen, your origami letters became ash in a mouth that bled (for too many years).
I would say goodbye, but the word is a branding iron razed against a smoldering tongue.

Forgiveness never came easily for the dead.
Graveyards are full of grudges and barely concealed debts.
When I told you that I loved you, I disguised the words (behind shattered glass bottles and origami letters confettied like New Year’s).

I remember your eyes cold like marbles, frozen like winter ponds.
(I made a half-joke and thought myself funny, but your lips never curled up in a smile.)
This is autobiography, but all you ever asked for was a poem or a story (but not this – not an obituary or an elegy. Not a eulogy or a goodbye).

I could never say goodbye. I ran from endings & ripped the last page out of every book I ever read.

Sometimes, I even wrote stories that ended in the middle of a —