Gems by Gabrielle Bryant-Gainer (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📖

first steps
The long gone happily ever after
when Emily turned 13
in each somber finality, it takes her closer
to pearl-white flowers beckoning rapture
cleansed by early September rains
tangled beneath those inky stains
berries in a little one's hands
the grasses gone to gray and thundering
berries mangled in blood, red
soaked in angry sweetness
'I can bleed too--dear' she mutters
Those hands are trembling
with swift child's feet, scrambling to reach her
mother's hand is reaching out to touch
 
To at least whisper to her daughter
To speak before her family slips
and falls into slaughter
The rose of war….
MTV dreams
You are dead to me love
That perfect oblivious me
I remember meeting you my brother
Teach me how to question why
In that blank MTV dream
Birds that fly on the screen
Deceived in roses red
They could not deceive me
My curves spiraled
Mirrored of the sound of happy
I remember your vision
The pocketknife on a drum
The prick of thorn to thumb
I would like to have been someone
Someone who said, Surprise
How wakeful are her eyes?
You once saw blue skies
Now you see, I'm a lemonhead
The world is just a box
Read, edited, re-edited
sleepers all so satiated
 

This real thing, just a broken
Piece of my reflection
Did I scream you to sleep
with your sheep and ship
going to the market
buying silver hair and steel
I do not think I'm real
Ice cubes cannot feel
So touch it and you melt
Ice Cubes all surround
It's the dream of cold stars
Free to melt under the sun
and I wonder why
sink or swim sink or swim
I cannot say how perfect
and white it feels not to say
How it feels to explode
and erase human history.
so here, share this delusion
here, share your conclusions
here, share your activisms
here, deform....
because if we ripple
then we bend...but
if we stand here we'll explode.
That's what war means you see it's
the master in his centerfold.
 
Thoughtless Asylum

I never tried to hurt You
This scar remains a proof
The consequence of love
You wander naked
Down the broken highways
Scared to shed your shoes
Then you do
I never tried to hurt You
Though the pain is not real
It climbs in with me each morning
So I know exactly how you feel
When you lost yourself
We never told the truth
That everyone who cared
Was right in front of you
It's not your fault
The wedge in your soul
It’s wedged in too deep
And when you sleep
It starts to creep around
So you smoke and drink and drive
And you can't get to sleep
 
Then they denied you
And you don't need help
There's no sufficient remedy
I'm sorry so sorry
Maybe it was never meant to be
You'll find that karma is a joke sometimes
It's more about order amidst chaos
And ignorance is bliss
Let the doctor floss his teeth
And pretend he's helping you bleed
All those red things that bloom
You are alright now
But I guess this is how
The story ends
The road bends
The ticket you got when
You drove two miles over the limit
Just don't go crazy
Because it might kill me
We'll adapt to this emergency
and I won't commit your suicide.
Some things are just not meant to be.
 
Jennifer’s Playground

Jennifer was sometimes amused
and the kids at the playground
loved to hear her tell stories
she liked to spin on the merry-go-round
as if colors could spin
but her parents sometimes fought
except for the arguments
life was pretty grand
sometimes it felt so good
to be caught up in her daydreams
Jenny captured frogs
when she liked playing outside
with kids her own age
Kids whose parents thought she was
A bad influence on them
she didn't know the world outside
imagination-land where images
became so twisted
she turned eight
and told herself stories
of men raping her
she told herself to
look into the glass
she saw a tunnel
with no light at the end
the yellow man laughed
because the walls had
always warped when she tried
To fall asleep
like the nightmares of
 
floating to the ceiling
a raison deferred
as the lights of cars
felt like lullabies of people
who were coming to her
reaching for her
and she felt home
her father thought it was
her mom's fault
it made no sense
the expenses
and they hated her to get between
their screaming
when she went to school
she fell behind
on the first day she asked a boy
his name
My name is crazy he said
but it didn't hurt her
she must've been lost somewhere
Jenny liked her thoughts
though she played games
sometimes with her will
daring herself to fly
off of the piano bench
she got into the car and drove
because she was no longer
the passenger
and those dreams made her feel scared
she was sick of driving
everyone crazy
why did it feel magical
sometimes
 
the sunshine
and hospitals
and waking up cold and numb
She grew up finally
only, she never wanted to really
she wanted to be a hero
and save the world
looking for people to save
she found no one
and she had to go home
now it should've ended
with a bang
but why give anyone credit
For the pain
We all deserve something
on Jennifer’s playground.
Sandcastle
We laugh in your castle of sand
As angels kneel before the moon
Wake up your star-crossed head, my friend
Come and dance with the animal
It is time to wake the little minds
There's a cold shadow on his tongue
Eating their pearls from silver spoons
Now that you have had all you need
Sing the songs in your garden
Your dreams are blue like happiness
Now those evils have been blood let
 
And your perfect lips devoured it
The angel burns with renascence
Dressed in the tears they had dismissed
She'll spin the wheel and turn desires
She'll rule as empress of empires
Black with a flaming dead crown
She wears her zeros, Saturn gowns
Now your hate will bear destiny
She will tip her head back and live
Drunken in perfect harmonies
as ruby tears begin to flow
She's embracing all existence
It might as well snow from heaven
 
Germany
He's so easily in
with the highs and lows
his lucid prose infuses feeling
you can hear his heart beating
making readers rehearse
their better version of 'me'.
He paints you Germany
expressionist smears of black and sorrow
turning thoughts to watercolor blues
 

he says: The Bar on the corner has
a maroon sign in the window
and it is looking for someone like you.
It says you are welcome here
with your soft soul
my Madeline, my hummingbird
sleepless nights in Germany
loneliness in Germany
Germany, so you will not forget me.

Magdalena
In the meadow where gentle rains fall
Her soul slips slowly to the light
In a place with no recall.
Her sins that never did appall
This love that was so right
In a place with no recall.
Some say she was sinful
Did she keep her lips locked tight
Safe behind the wailing wall?
In a blessed land so small
Her soul came relentlessly to fight
Those words should they befall.
You can still hear them wail
 
To a soul from the depths of night
In a place that was to fall.
Did the people hear her call?
With such a raging heart of might
She was banished from them all
In a place with no recall.
Buddha Ballerina
guided by the gentle toes
she lends herself a prayer
graceful gallant airs
we rise as ballerinas
and move in currents
and currents in waves
as light behaves as
we behave
marionette with invisible wings
until spotted by a distant star
the blinking of the little things
looking out from afar
dancing in the lonely moonlight
where all the silences refrain
before the mood begins to wane
we dance like it means nothing
and leap into the space
like we're falling from grace
 
only to land in perfect pose
guided by gentle toes
Lithium
I could be the murderer
and I could kill the mole
But I live here in this home
Of broken windows
So I wait for the darkness
Before I'm taken
And turned away
From that which buried
all your reflections
becoming mere impressions
Ghosts of enmity..
I could mimic this bright madness
I could be the phony hare
take your invitation to race you
getting faster and faster
until I've gone too far
and all my energy is gone
with all of your killing
I must be your favorite one
what a darn thing you say
with this knife you wield of gravity
like I am an evil core
walk around me girl
You bite me like I made you
I am no evil whore, you see
a reflection of eternity
But damn me for we all will
 

Who scam me and betray
You’ll throw me off this tower
and then you watch me bleed
little girl who had me
little girl who wants me
to open the door
as the mother blows away.
The things you said
When you were dead
Are no more...
I waited for you there
Now you are empty
and I have led thee
to a world of men
with led eyes
and sand kingdoms
dead upon their thrones
But if you were to take my hand
and let me take of you
I would instill a bravery
of pain and solemn truth
I have wished so long
for a healing bestowed to you
and my love has blown away
How can I tame the shrew?
 
Confused Refrains
You are alone like me (indifferently)
But we share this difference- of similarities
See, I cannot laugh or cry, I'd be dying
You are alone like me
Your poetry you shares the same melody
Sings songs of empathy (gentle apathy)
When no one else is there (a soul survives the ashes)
You are alone like me
When I want to see the world changing
And nothing goes my way (blood is blood this way)
So I try to pray but why pray
When I don't think it'll make a difference
My words aren't golden, they were all stolen
By someone else (stolen by your eyes lie)
You are alone like me (so quietly)
If only I could feel for you
But these tears have all been cried
My eyes have been dry of dreaming
So I sleep all night and think
And a dream all day without notion
I go through all the motions
Why, will someone please help me?
 
I thought I'd never love you
With your dark
But now I see it's your darkness
The keeps me alive in my heart (that keeps things
apart)
Beautiful Bones
The silver bells rung like a hurricane
And as the red carpet unraveled for Jane
She walked straight down the line
Such a beautiful dress, that she had on...
She was just like you are
With golden locks and green eyes for stars
She had been loved by them all always
But she didn't care for just one
Letting them pass on, just pass her by
Her only lover, was a silver gun
As the bells rung she ran away
without a word to say
She strung ruby red
Across her neck
like she had meant it to be
That was Jane problem you see
No one cares for me
she cried it again and again
The truth is, no one really did.
 

But of course
no one will get this message...
it's too late to care
because we're filled with greed