Skip to main content

I am rooting for us, and Elegy for Her by Faye Alexandra Rose

CW: Please note 'Elegy for Her', the second poem on this page, contains reference to sexual assault. 

I am rooting for us


We are like two sunflowers, 

growing 

tall, but

individually, 

almost touching, but we never quite     manage it.

We have found ourselves so desperate for the sunlight,

that we forgot to work on our life in the shade.

The sourness that lies unspoken between our roots,

sits silently,

rotting our foundations,

until there is nothing left to nourish,

until,

we 

wilt

away. 

---

Elegy for Her 



She lay silent, buried underneath 

his body 

that was about to suffocate hers 

of life,  

he used her body as a sin, as he  

ripped apart 

her skin 

with knives, 

she was a mannequin 

to be cast aside 

and placed on to a pile 

with other statistics, 

mirrors became her enemy, 

she did not want to see 

the reflection of defeat, as 

the pain still feeds on her happiness.  



She used to refer to herself in past tense 

for life was not 

as kind 

back then 

and, 

slowly, 

my focus became who I am now; 

a woman who could no longer be touched 

by him, 

a woman free to breathe without 

his toxic fumes that sat 

heavy on my chest.



I now stand tall above 

the home I have built  

from the rubble, 

allowing myself to 

feel the sun on my skin

as I close my eyes and no longer 

dream, 

for my dream is now a reality:  

I am cleansed. 

I am healed. 

I am worthy.  

---

Faye Alexandra Rose is a third-year student studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Worcester. Her work has appeared in online magazines such as; Mookychick, small leaf press and Fevers of the mind. She can be found on Twitter @FayeAlexandraR1 or via her website: www.fayealexandrarose.wordpress.com. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home by Jessa Forest

Home scratches at her shingles with tree branch fingers, pulls the air conditioning unit close to her grimy aluminum siding, and keens an empty song of mourning. We found her wandering the tornado snarled wild three months ago, starved and lonely. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself, you see? We fed her shards of dining room tables, kindling for the fireplace, and cast iron bathtubs clawed feet first. She was slow to recover so we gutted her plumbing, ripped out her nerves, and rewired the electricity. She let the water in every time it rained so we put a new roof on her and let her out for regular walks around the wolf pen. Let her mingle with the vultures, I said, let her feel useful and clean up the dead but no one wanted to listen. We found rot an mold in her corners, infused her insulation with antibiotics, and quarantined her for two weeks while she belched ladderback chairs, sofa cushions, wind chimes, and broken bookcases. She still has her bad days. After feeding time...
97 comments
Read more

Smoking and Swearing by Ian Manson

He’s stood outside, he’s on his break. He’s unsure whether to be smoking or swearing. He decides on both. Inhale. Fuuuck! Inhale. Fuuuck! A person, a visitor, or a patient. Heading to the hospital, sees his scrubs and scowls. “ It’s not very professional for a nurse to be smoking and swearing. ” But he doesn’t care. He’s already done his good deed for the morning and by midnight he’ll have done a dozen more. Yesterday was a paltry four. Tomorrow’s shift will be five or two or maybe eight, and another night of finishing late. Inhale. Fuuuck! He breathes a cloud of smoke. Watches it swirling, ascending, a spirit en-route to heaven. The person’s saintly sanctimony means nothing to him. Because he’s on his break. And he’s smoking, and he’s swearing. --- Originally from Scotland, Ian has lived and worked in Worcestershire for the last 11 years. He can normally be found performing his poetry and prose at events on the Worcester spoken word scene...
25 comments
Read more

Prints by Penny Ayers

A child’s mark before letters— sticky red palms, ten tiny petals, two flowers patted on white. Already they’re telling her story— the whorls of the thumbs, the dips and stretches of lines of life, of the heart. She’ll leave them everywhere— on the skin of lovers, knives in the kitchen, the riffled pages of library books, on window glass, wiping raindrops.   Will she reach out to touch things no longer there, make her mark for others to find like her sisters whose hands were caught in crushed ochre on cave walls, among running horses, the haunches of bison, 35,000 years ago?* *It’s now believed that many cave paintings were made by women, judging by the size of the handprints.   ---   Pe​nny Ayers lives in Cheltenham.   She has been published online and in various magazines, most recently in ‘Ink, Sweat & Tears’, ‘Snakeskin’ and the summer edition of ‘Spelt’. She helps run the Gloucestershire Writers’ Network.
1 comment
Read more