By: Norah Obuchon

Tangled in Thought

I wish I could write the same way I thought.
Neurotically;
compulsively;
obsessively;
with maddening hunger. 
I’d write to the point of suffocation.
Tangled up in my own words,
like a rope around my neck. 
I’d write myself into nervous breakdowns;
until my fingers were numb;
till I could no longer sleep;
till pure exhaustion.
Paragraphs would spiral out rapidly,
pulling me down into an abysmal nothing
and swallowing me whole.
I’d write far too much about you...
But for some reason I can never get the thought out of my head.
It gets lost somewhere in the space between my pen and paper,
or the space between my lips.
A space that grows into emptiness and fills my throat,
as I begin to choke once again on my thoughts. 
They never seem to make it into words,
I guess I'm scared they’ll come out the wrong way. 
 

Dandelion

Sometimes I feel more like a dandelion than a girl.
Like a weed. 
Unwanted.
Out of place.
Pushing my way through the cracks in the sidewalk,
Trying to find the Sun.
In the past two years, I’ve watched everything in my life and everything around me be uprooted.
For both better and worse.
As the seasons change, pieces of myself blow away.
I’m withered now, and nothing looks quite the same.
But that’s the funny thing about weeds; 
they always seem to grow back.

 

The Words Written in Someone’s Eyes When They Cannot Bring Themselves to Speak

She smiles a lot, 
too much.
Blind enthusiasm masks whatever is underneath,
Her eyes have a lonely look about them 
and she’s struggling to breathe.
I wish I could just tell her,
Your voice is not too loud;
Your laugh is not too vibrant.
Amid all the unruly noise of this place, you should not be silent.

Your life is not a quiet mistake.
You are heard.