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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

Eluxoroma: a Follow-up Poem to Lypophrenia

“A term invented by author Gregory Venvonis to describe the devotion to positive spiritual growth amid underlying darkness.”

Though the glimmer might be eradicated
(from time to time),
it is always capable of shining again.
Though it can be hard to see when cloaked
in midnight,
your mind is capable of fabricating untruths
like a ruthless politician or an adversary.

(It’s why we tried to give the enemy
a name –
to make him easier to talk about
then just an abstract concept.)

But the boulder that buries itself
on top of you,
smothering your breathing
and swallowing your light,
is also capable of eroding.

It might feel like centuries have passed you
by,
but just know –
after every winter, we see flowers blossom.

You, too, will blossom again.
I will resurrect from this darkness
and discover my light from within.
(Even if I have to excavate my soul
like some damned archeological dig.)

It’s too easy to surrender,
but we’ll fight through the frost,
push past the sparrows’ wings that beat
furiously
against our bones,
and surmount our devils.

(The ones we have named
and even the anonymous ones
who prefer to cower in the darkest places
inside us.)

Isabelle Palerma

Lypophrenia: a Poem

“A feeling best described as sorrow that has no clear cause.”

We thought by giving him a name,
it couldn’t break me so badly,
but the agony still extinguishes the illumination
within my irises, within my pupils,
within my soul.
There is a darkness deeper than I care to admit,
but I cannot hide from forever.
(My fire has not ignited in days,
yet I cannot hide in bed
and relinquish myself to the shadows
completely.)

I swore to myself
I would not drown in thoughts such as these,
but sometimes,
the devastations are greater than I can control.

It sometimes feels as though
I am caught in a riptide,
the ocean current pulling me away
from everyone who loves me
until all they are is a speck of sand,
a memory.

(My honesty is raw,
my words are plain.
I usually hide behind an ornate metaphor
crafted carefully and I tread with caution –
not to overstep the boundary lines.)

I have picked up the pen several times,
but the ink well is dry
and my thoughts crystallize
like honey thickening as it cools.
Nothing makes sense when the demons
take the reins
& I try to swallow the bile down.

I try to offer a courageous smile,
but I feel weak and collapsing
is the only option I have sometimes.

Don’t judge me for the anguish I carry.
Each one is a sparrow beating its wings
inside my chest,
desperate to be released but finding a home
buried deep in my rib cage
alongside that dimly burning crystal
that is a barely beating heart.

(I cannot swallow
for all the feathers that have climbed
from my chest to my throat,
from my throat to the wet insides of my mouth.)

So, instead, with this inexplicable sadness,
I lie here,
my heart – my sparrows – knocking against my chest
(an unspoken tragedy bearing down on me).

Isabelle Palerma

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The (Not So) Gentle Parts: a Poem

You talk of your soul ossifying –
the soft parts hardening,
but I’m preoccupied with
pulling out the hems of reality,
ripping out the stitching.

I refuse to yield.

To be soft for too many years
means
to decay,
to become moss underfoot
& I refuse to become trampled.

They told me that the way you identify
lace is by its holes,
and I know now,
I never want to be recognized
by what I lack.

Instead,
I hunt for the parts of myself
that used to be consumed by the patriarchy
and men with hunger for eyes.
(The pieces of myself
that were consumed
because I swallowed my teeth
to make myself more digestible.)

But I don’t need a flashlight
or a search party —
I can be discovered quite easily.

I’m not the girl who I thought I was.
I’m the woman who refuses to surrender.
I forget my fight sometimes
(like the candle who neglected her flame),
but I am prepared for war.

I am no longer paraffin wax that pours down smoothly-
only to harden on your lungs.
I’m not the gentle pieces you stepped upon –
the dandelion you crushed & never asked
forgiveness of.

Isabelle Palerma

Lingering Regrets: a Poem

Every syllable, every plosive shatters the remnants of once held promises.
Shards of broken vows pirouette across the rubber of my tongue.
Each word a lacerating cut like a needle,
like the fine lines etched into my palm for an oracle’s prophecy or an artist’s sketch.
My mouth tastes of iron and of rust, and my head is a beehive, swarming with thought.

My name is Regret — don’t you have a few?
As imperfect as you were, do you ever carry the weight of remorse?
Of course you can’t answer.
The ghosts never respond to me.
I’m alone in my grief & in my solitude, I cannot beckon Lazarus to awaken from his slumber.
This is my greatest sin —
for which there is no redemption.