Lovers Movie Night
By: Maranda Russell
He leans over to grab a magazine.
“People like you are so annoying,”
she sniffs disdainfully.
“People like me?”
he asks as he reclines back
and settles in to read.
Soon, he feels a tiny foot
wiggle over to nudge his shin.
“Why pay to see the movie then?”
she mutters
with a deeply pained sigh.
“What movie?”
…..
“I hate you.”
Holy Warriors
By: Maranda Russell
Holy warriors
learn a lesson
today.
Their distorted agenda
rightly condemns
one righteous man
setting a fire
beyond their own
narrow audience –
but – to the best
of my knowledge –
this will be
a one-time exception.
The Comfort Trap
By: Maranda Russell
The comfort trap
has closed around me,
its cold metal arms
crueler than a vice.
But don’t help me out,
for I’ll only find
a creative way
to crawl back in.
Cook Me With Tenderness
By: Maranda Russell
Clever,
and not yet
without tricks,
I seem to
only disappoint
you further.
But I beg of you,
don’t roast me –
just smash me to bits
and cook me
with tenderness.
Sleeping Poetic Genius
By: Maranda Russell
I wrote a poem
in my sleep last night.
The words, colors, and images
now blur in my mind.
I try to pin them down,
only to have them
wiggle away
like a puppy
desperate to escape
a confining embrace.
The poem was grand,
of this I am sure.
A masterpiece of language,
now shriveled and dried up
like an unlucky worm
laying dead
after a rainstorm.
Waffle House at 3am
By: Maranda Russell
Waffle House
at 3 am
is not the place
to make a scene.
It doesn’t matter
if your heart
is broken,
if your brother
just ran off
with your boyfriend,
or if you want
to punch
that smarmy cook
right
in the left
testicle.
Stringy hashbrowns
cover a multitude
of sins,
vanilla coke
softly bubbles
over salty wounds,
and once in a while,
raisin toast
can be sweeter
than revenge.
Church Abuse
By: Maranda Russell
The lace unravels.
The smaller holes
become bigger tears
as the candle wax
hardens on the soft,
satin cloth.
Prayers,
and pleas
and petitions
abound,
but the altar
lies irrevocably
ruined.
Yesterday I commented on a post by blogger Myloudbipolarwhispers about mental illness labels. In the comment, I explained how one of my foster kids once had a therapist who talked about the dangers of “alphabet soup”, which is when people start collecting so many labels (ADHD, ADD, ASD, PTSD, SAD, OCD, DID, BPD, RAD, and so on and so on) that they lose sense of themselves as a person or even worse, those treating them lose sight of their humanity and just see them as a list of diagnoses.
I shared in the comment that I even wrote a short poem about “alphabet soup”, which ended up in my book about foster care (From Both Sides). Myloudbipolarwhispers mentioned that she would like to see the poem, so I figured I would just share it in a post here, since it definitely fits the themes of this blog:
Alphabet Soup
By: Maranda Russell
Some good old-fashioned RAD,
a touch of PTSD,
just a hint of OCD,
a generous helping of ADHD
and a pinch of ODD
to taste.
Add it all together
and what do you get?
Alphabet soup…
and a kid
made entirely
of labels.
I’m not feeling too well right now due to one of my wisdom teeth hurting pretty bad, but I wanted to share another of my recent art/poetry drawings. Lately I’ve had an uptick of sales on my art and I truly appreciate it! Thank you so much to all those who support me that way!
“I once had a name,
had a home, had a life.
But the winds swept thru
like they always do,
and I lost it all
at that trumpet call.
And their voices sound,
spinning round and round,
till we all fall down.”
You can find this drawing and other artworks of mine for sale at my Ebay store!
