poems by
Margo Caslavka
The wisps in the sky And a backdrop of blue Shield a parking lot mess A reflection untrue An expansion of time Shadows over a minute But the beauty remains Take the ugliness with it.
I sit with infant eyes On a toilet seat Where my feet Don’t touch the floor With a screaming pee Of where I’ve been And where I could be Wishing I could touch Those tiles beneath me But the stacked books And reaching toes Teach me that Wiping clean your woes Have nothing to do With growth But sitting uncomfortably Will lead you home Dangling your feet With your screaming pee Humming tunes of chaos To the sea of wind outside I can’t help but Hear with infant eyes
I used to think I used to ponder Even pray (Back in the day When I thought A prayer would get me Somewhere) To live worry-free In cage-less Unstranded abandon. I can remember a lot now On my own In a room alone, But there’s one thing I forgot: To pray Is instead to give thanks Everyday For the spaces and the smiles (To celebrate them and These miles we’ve come). This I could not have remembered Without you
Signs seem like false directions When I know my way But can’t find What I have to say About the fraying magic, The setting sun So tragically, hopefully won This is free agency No universal sign Digging into me I’m coming out Nothing’s meant to be Make no mistake Tweaking signs These freaks of nature Make us prisoners of our own design I know I walk a shady line This path is right This path is mine Clear to me in shadows Refined with no tomorrows All I can hold is this heart All I can feel is this pulse Directionless focus About the fraying magic In the setting sun So tragically, hopefully won.
Blinded by my thoughts And this box that rules My inner world But leads me to The outer space Is it freedom or prison Being locked in a prism Bouncing in and out Reflecting light and dark In this box that rules My tunnel vision When I can’t find you Or when I’m lost To this flat screen size And my telescope eyes Bouncing back and forth Is it compulsion or flow Pulling out of me My sticky finger needs My dizzy visual pleas For a rest To my inner world Release me From outer space I want to breathe now Without speaking my thoughts Tied to keys That won’t open locks When I’m lost… This screen, my eyes They need to sleep They need to cry
Will there be a time Where this divine line Swirling behind me Settles in me And I wake up To the beauty before me And the chair beneath me So that what I see Settles in me Without hope or freedom Of a better time With a divine line That exists in me now I pulse for how to believe again In the power of when I wake up In the beauty before me And the chair beneath me So that what I see Settles in me
I feel like all the hurtful words and treatment From others From my dad And my mother That I shake off Sink back into me like quicksand And I am left with stale bread That I can’t taste Because I’m tasting for others instead And my thoughts get me nowhere And my ideas become nothing While I’m wasting time for what Others have said While I justify why I’d be better off dead. I don’t know what this world wants of me Or why My dad And my mother Gave birth to be rid of me, But I’m doing my best With my blind eyes To see more clearly That these words are no longer hurting me That I don’t have to shake them off with a grin Because I’m looking down now And they’re not even touching my skin