The Knife Flower

 

There it was

sticking up from the soil

like a skeletal hand from the crypt.

 

I didn’t expect it,

and to be honest,

I had stopped looking down

for quite a while.

 

It split my heel open

and curled around my ankle—

how could I

let it do me like this?

 

Strong

hold.

 

And now,

this ghost snake

has coiled around my insides—

my demons

 

barking out

ancient names

as if they’re in charge.

 

I can’t stop the tremoring

of a thin flame running through me,

a living Siberian ice maiden

with mercury blade.

 

It seems

this grief has no rules

and neither do

the nightmares I feel condemned to relive

 

while the mirror of my self-respect

asks me

if I really want to keep

doing this to myself.

 

Do you?

        Do you?

                Do you?

 

Just

stop.

 

Stop.

 

But, torment, too,

has no rules

when you’re split in two,

 

offering no answers

to questions

I can’t quite

bring myself to ask—

 

the mirrored me

begging to fracture completely

the us

I am

 

or bury the pretty,

dead-white, petal fist

in mudblood

 

until I am whole, and strong

enough,

to crush it

 

again.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

OLN #376

Trap Door

Brooke Shaden Photography

I have a demon for sale

but it will cost you

more than

you are probably

willing to pay.

It has already

bled me drier than a

dead president’s kiss,

and still I owe.

I go

to great lengths

to starve it,

try to keep it at bay—

this drunk dial

sober reality

I try wishing away—

close the trap door,

cut it off

at its legs,

squeeze-close

the cracks

in my armor, again,

from the fray.

Because

when you love

something broken

you break

and you break

and you break.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

For dVerse Poetics Grace offers us the work of conceptual photographer Brooke Shaden.

Note:  I took some artistic license with the word "trapdoor."  I separated it for dramatic emphasis, in case anyone was hung up on the spelling, ha.  But dictionary.com says it can be "trap door" too, so maybe it's okay anyway.  Thanks for reading!

freebase

Chair with the Wings of a Vulture, 1960, Salvador Dali

from broken life

to broken life

the deadlight

arises

vulturous

lit candles warming

the addicts’ spoons,

lift plumes

like blackbirds’ wings,

ominous,

cancerous

moments that free them

to carrion,

eyes nightblind

to hope threaded

in a spindle spoke sky

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

Magpie Tales 218

The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 159

Sexploitica

I cue moonlight,

light tealights,

trail petals

to my heart,

but you,

pornblind and hooked,

don’t even know

where to start.

© 2014 Jennifer Wagner

Pornography addiction, especially via the internet, is a relationship killer.  If you or someone you know is struggling, there is help.  Lots of resources out there, Celebrate Recovery and Pure Desire among them.

There Go I, Dancing Broken

she said

she was drying out

and needed to get clean

i just held her hand

as she wept

holding her hair back

while she threw up

nearly 20 years

of the most hideous

and sobering regrets

and, like natural childbirth,

there is not much you can do

but be there

while she learns how

to nurture a new life beyond it

and remind her

even if you’re walking broken

you can learn how to dance again

Copyright © 2013 Jennifer Wagner

For Laurie's prompt at Poetry Jam:  Poetry of Dance.  And for Poets United:  The Poetry Pantry.