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
77 comments
Read more

“Are You So Tired Then, Stranger?” by Ace Boggess

  —Dick Allen, “B&B”    Wind exhausts with its icy fists. Knives of rain wear me down, & leaves in their helicopter swirls like leaflets dropped from a plane. October depletes me, & November. They’ve too much busyness. They send me spinning, dancing, lonely with the rake, the broom. I surrender, collapsing like an old barn, debris of me piling in a chair with clear view of the television.  News is on. It spends me. Talk of politics, also. I’d like  to shut up the voices that fatigue. They hum like a B-flat in the pipes. They bicker & scold, condemn. They expend me like carrying  groceries up a flight of stairs  until I’m too drained to care  which side they’re on. --- Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including  Escape Envy  (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021),  I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So , and  The Prisoners . His writing has appeared in  Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review,  and other journals. An ex-c
1 comment
Read more

Paths by O.T. Park

I like walking worn down tracks Where the beat of human feet Has steadily marked the time. Paths where trees eclipse the sky and where dabbled light anoints The knotted and gnarled ground. Long lanes scarred by raised roots Which form illegible inscriptions; Where vegetation creates a nave and the trail itself an endless aisle. A placid place that celebrates Feet moving in communion. --- O.T. Park lives and works in Guildford. He has had poems published in Eye Flash Poetry, The Dawntreader and The Cannon's Mouth.
Post a Comment
Read more