Rebecca Howe

 Poetry 

Poe was Right to be Scared

She says the clock doesn’t strike
the way it used to.
Old hands and rusted gears
used to ring like church bells
calling in the darkness.

She says the wind yells
keeps her up at night.
Crickets speak to her in broken words
they haunt ghosts in the graveyard of her mind.
She says the darkness haunts her.

Blackbirds wait on her doorstep,
noiseless.
Cleaning their oily wings
and sharpening their claws on the door
slowly scraping away the wood
chipping away at her life.

She says, in the morning
they are gone.
And one day
the door will be gone
and anything that wants to can come in
and nothing go out.

Silver Wings

She has eyes, soft as silver, sharp as metal.
Dusty street corner she lives, haunted by daydreams.
Silver words on purple walls, speak of nightmares.
Listen, she says,
I am waiting for the revolution.
But she is hopping freight trains on hot nights
and burning paper in the darkness.
Sleep soundly when the rain comes
it means the end of the world.

I don’t know what it’s like to live, she says
I only know darkness.
And she has bloodstains on her pillow
from biting her lip too hard at night.
I see butterflies in dreams
  silver wings burning in the darkness.
But we only live in our imagination
and only die in our dreams.
Believe me when I say, this world
is not enough.

Mind over matter, I say
you can beat this.
But her light is already out, her eyes dim
searching for silver wings in the fog.