Mission to Mars

This was something I wrote for a writing project, as part of an online community I’m a part of. I (of course) chose to write a poem, but the topic was a future setting where mankind was going to Mars. I missed the deadline to submit for the project, so this has been hanging out in my notebook and needs a home.
If you’re a creative type, and you’ve never heard of hitRECord I suggest checking it out. It works as a production company, they make all kinds of art and media and collaborate on it. If you’re at all curious, there is probably something for you there.

 

We have wasted and turned to dust
What once was beautiful green and lush
Now we can travel to the red world above
But what can she really offer us?

Us, who destroy and degrade and consume
Us, who blindly orchestrate our own doom

I stand on charred earth
And look up at the stars
But it feels wrong to join them
To claim planets as ours

Maybe, as they say, it was
An inevitable evolution
Or maybe it’s a hail mary
A kind of desperate delusion

Either way it feels wrong
To leave the earth we destroyed
Disrespected, neglected
Treated like a toy

Even if mankind makes it to Mars
We will inevitably bring
Everything that will eventually
Destroy us from within

Nostalgic Fantasy

Is this all I am
Is this all I’ve ever been
A nostalgic game of fantasy
To every man who has ever known me

You always ask me what Im wearing
You want me to make it sound cute
You’re thinking knee socks and spandex
Clinging to my legs
Tank top tight against these ample breasts
You want me to paint myself into
A portrait for you
Like I am just a fantasy
Here waiting for you

Well this
Is what you see
When I put down the paintbrush
And pick up a pen
This is the image of a woman
Waiting around to play fantasy for men

This is the dry mouth
That comes after all of those held breaths
This is the sound of gagging
On the resentment of expectations not met
This is the stench
Of a mountain of regret
That oozes out like pheromones
At the hint of a familiar scent

But you want that flirtatious adrenaline rush
That conversation only if you’re bored
That sexy picture when you’re stressed
That slow playful texting
About what kind of sex we like
On your oh-so-seldom lonely night

I never thought
You’d inspire me to feel this way
This, another lesson
That rose colored glasses
Grow back with time away

But you spent so many years
Agreeing to be only what I needed
Regardless of how you may have been feeling
So now I wonder if I don’t owe it to you
To play the part of your Manic Pixie Dream Girl
For a few

But I feel something die a little
With every word I say
Because fantasies flame hot
Then die out a little every day
And anything real
Burns to ashes that way

Scavenger Hunts

I want to feel your arms encircling me
Want to taste your mouth as it’s devouring me
Encouraging mine to take more greedily
Matching each subtle push and pull of your body
So eagerly
I want to watch the shine in your eyes as I touch you
When our hungry hands act like lovers do
Discover each new space like a scavenger hunt
Each breathy whimper a clue to grinningly confront
As we slowly collect each moan, each shiver
Each arch of a back, each sigh of pleasure

Wells

I seek out wells to drown myself in
Dressed up in nice eyes and warm skin
A shadowy place to hide
Like a broken welcome sign
Atop an abandoned mine
That just echoes back the denial
that bounces around in my mind
Until I believe the me I’m pretending to be
Until I can only see what my depression needs me to believe
Until I wake up one day
And don’t recognize me
Trapped inside a cage of my own making
knees shaking, heart aching
With the realization
That I’ve been hiding my life away
Performing the same one act play
Reminding myself it’s what I wanted
To escape; to dissolve;
To fall like crumpled paper from pockets
So no one would see me flailing
So no one would see me failing

Bruises

Waking up after drinking
and then arguing the night before
When he told you he hated you
He didn’t love you anymore
You were sobbing, following him around
Begging him to listen
Begging him to calm down

So you drag yourself to the shower
Step out to dry off
Catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror
Eyes widen, you gawk

Criss cross cobwebs
of blue and purple fingerprints
Red marks, bruises
Flashes of memories coming in bits

Flung around like a rag doll
onto the floor, against the wall
Being grabbed and pushed
falling backward down the hall
Fighting him off as he tried to physically
throw you out the door
Onto the lawn, in the rain
Where he’d thrown your purse and keys just before

The coldness in his eyes
The hardness of his grip
Cruel words flashing by
like an old blurry comic strip

All at once feeling
so hollow and so small
Like that isn’t even you
staring back from the wall

No One

I’ve been bruised by more men than I’d like to admit
See even when we know better, we’re still ashamed of it
People don’t understand my anger
At the victim shaming, the blaming
“What did you do/What did you say that made him so mad?”
Or “Well it’s not like he hit you, so it wasn’t that bad.”

Once, he just forced me down on my knees
Held me there while he poured his entire beer over me

Once, to keep me from leaving
He secretly disconnected wires in my engine
No idea what he was doing, thought it would stall out
But not right away, it didn’t

Once, he just threw a remote at my head
Thankfully I reacted, he got my forearm instead

I covered welts and shame under lies and long sleeves
Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks
And not to protect him, but to protect me

See I understand the reason we fold
No one can pick apart a story you never told
No details for people to hammer away at
No having to hear, “I just can’t see him acting like that.”

No one to claim you hurt yourself to be vengeful
No one to start a meme of your pain and call you hateful
No one to tell you, “you probably deserved what you got”
No one to spread rumors that violence gets you hot
No one to assume you brought it on yourself
No one to write you off as too much trouble to help

Being Polite

I told him no thanks
I don’t drink vodka anymore
And I don’t like gin
Apparently that didn’t matter to him
He brought over a martini
Kept saying I would just love it
So finally, I smiled thinly
While he watched me swallow it

Because God forbid
He call me the crazy girl
Who thinks everyone wants to rape her
The ungrateful bitch
Who refused the drink that he paid for

Because girls should be careful
But they should never be rude
Weren’t you taught that too
And, you’re a good guy right?
So she shouldn’t be scared of you

As if predators have
flashing lights on their heads
As if we don’t already
have to worry
You’ll mistake politeness
for interested