Dark Hearts Love Too: Appointment With an Epidemic

Dark Hearts Love Too: Appointment With an Epidemic:   Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay The rat ran and she chased, the plague chased and she ran kisses can serve as vectors for disease an...

a poem addressing my many abusive relationships over the years.

Senryu: Two Hearts

Image by Goran Horvat from Pixabay

do hearts beat as one

does a broken soul get crushed

beneath brutal will

~cie~

November PAD Chapbook Challenge Day 24: A Dialogue

you had my heart

I only wanted a hookup

you should have said so

you took the chance

you shouldn't lie

you should be more careful who you trust

you should be ashamed

but you're the one who is

how can you be so heartless?

it's your fault for thinking with your heart

why do you think cruel is cool?

I'm not the one sitting home crying

you're a miserable liar

you're the one who feels like dying

I did everything you wanted

and now I'll find someone else to do the same

you are the worst

but I won't take the blame

you are the lowest

but you carry the shame

~Cie~

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge asked for a dialogue poem. I had this terrible conversation all too many times in my younger days when my self-esteem was at its worst and I let bad guys do terrible things to me in the vain hope that they would love me back. Being the cold-hearted bitch that I get accused of being when I rebuff the advances of jerks who think I should consider myself lucky that they're paying attention to me is far better than being broken-hearted and feeling used.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Angie Blue

Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay

in a time that came and went long ago

whether I was taking down my walking cane and hat

or wrapped up in my bell-bottom blues

I guess you could call me Angie Blue

I was that girl who lived my life in the songs I heard

on the rock and roll radio

I dreamed of wide spaces and endless love

and maybe if I'd been pretty

instead of an ugly duckling girl

maybe I'd have found something more

than fire that quickly turned to ice

and shallow-hearted boys looking for a hookup

that didn't last any longer than a song

you could call me Angie Blue

the ugly duckling girl who learned the truth

that there will never be a prince who rides along the sea and the mountain

my collection of colorful hats now sit collecting dust

my walking cane is now used to support

a body that doesn't work very well

the boys who wanted a good-time girl

are now middle-aged men cheating on their wives

with foolish young women not much older than I was then

I suppose it was better to live my truth

then to get caught up in a web

of love that was no more than lies

but I have been lonely

there is no one and only

unless you count only lonely me

footloose in my mind

with a body that can't dance in reality

and not so fancy or free at all

~Cie~

Note:

The November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt for today asked for a poem about an article of clothing. I thought about the song Rubber Band Man which begins: "hand me down my walking cane, hand me down my hat" and of another favorite song from the same era, Bell Bottom Blues. The rest of it just flowed. The other songs referenced are Albatross, Angie Baby, At Seventeen, Endless Love, Factory Girl, Fire and Ice, Footloose, Jackie Blue, and Only the Lonely.

I was never the pretty girl that all the boys wanted to take to the dance. I was always the ugly duckling that sat on the sidelines, and guys sometimes asked me to dance if they thought that someone as dowdy as me would be desperate enough to do what they wanted. Usually, I knew better, which made them angry.

Strange Connections: Good People in Bad Romances

Other than substance addiction issues, one might not think that Bon Scott and Amy Winehouse have much in common. However, both of them were involved to the point of obsession with people who were incredibly bad for them, and although musically speaking they are both artists I can't get enough of, I have to stop listening after a fairly brief period of time because I know what and who they're singing about and it's really depressing.

The other issue is the fact that I can relate all too well to being obsessed with a person who is really, really, really horrible for you. I did it more than once. People think that all-consuming "love" is wonderful. It's anything but, and usually, it isn't really love, it's an obsession. So, yanno, no thanks to ending up in the ER with bloody wrists over some asshole who doesn't deserve my pain. Better to be alone than to be with someone toxic.

Although, unfortunately, in my case, more often than not, I'm alone in bad company.

Plus, in the case of AC/DC, I can only listen for just so long (and that isn't long these days) before I start getting really pissed off about the way Malcolm Young went out. Dementia is the absolute fucking worst, particularly when it takes out someone whose intelligence was a key part of who they were. Malcolm Young was a high school dropout, but he was smarter than a lot of people with strings of letters behind their names.

The late Glen Campbell's wife said of dementia "It's better to die some other way," and she's absolutely right. Fuck dementia.

As Bob Seger once said, sometimes I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

~Cie~

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 29+ Poems in April Day 29: Asking Questions With Eyes Rolled Back

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Annoying content warning:

Poem contains profanity

If you have a problem with that, don't read it

Were you born to ramble

Or do you just run when things get serious

Do you read Baudelaire

Or do you just claim to do whatever makes you seem educated

Are you the kind who has to go and shoot your rockets everywhere

Do you know how many of your kind I've known

Do you know that you bore me to death

Do you know that you aren't nearly as slick as you think you are

Do you know that I'm sick of driving around with my eyes closed

Do you know that I can smell your bullshit from a mile away

Do you know I already know that this feeling doesn't go both ways, no matter what you say

Do you know how utterly fucking transparent you are

Do you know that I got sick of guys like you a long time ago

Do you know that I no longer waste my time on time wasters

Do you know that I don't abide liars

Why don't you crawl back under the rock that you crawled out from in the first place

Do you know that you seem like a creep rather than a suave, smooth sheik

Do you know that I'm sick of guys like you who think they can crawl into a woman's heart and tear it apart without a second thought for what they've done

Did you know I'm done

Did you know I'm long past done

Did you know I'm already gone

~Cie~

Notes:

NaPoWriMo asked for a poem which reflects in a calm way on a subject that is generally emotionally charged.

Poems in April asked for a poem made up of questions.

In my younger days, I constantly berated myself, wondering what I did wrong to draw only the worst kind of guys to me.

The fact of the matter is, these guys were predators and clowns. 

They were the kind of guys who deliberately seek out someone with low self-esteem because they think they will have an easier chance of getting laid with someone who is insecure.

A joker of this caliber isn't worth anybody's time. 

I can reflect on it calmly now because I despise the whole dating/mating dance and refuse to play that game anymore.

It hurt me a lot back then. But from my current vantage point, I can honestly say, it wasn't me, it was them.

Song References:

Poems in April: Day 10: In Thrall

Image by prettysleepy1 from Pixabay

Have you ever been in thrall

Of someone who was just so

Bad and so entirely wrong

You walk in heart wide open

Know your heart will be broken

But you can't resist the pull

Though you know that it's a lie

You can kiss your life goodbye

~Pepper Baiij for Kris Rooiakker~

Notes:

This poem has some 'splainin' to do.

First, why would I take on ANOTHER daily challenge when I'm already involved with two of them?

I could blame the bipolar disorder, but I think the truth is, I'm genuinely insane. I'm not referring to the bipolar disorder part. That's mental illness. Mental illness is not insanity. Insanity is knowing something isn't realistic and doing it anyway. I have a proven track record of insanity.

The second factor involved here is my intent to finally publish a book of my poetry at the end of the year. I don't need to worry about publishers who insist that only previously unpublished works appear. The book will be published by Team Netherworld Creations, a seedy little independent press of which I am the Head Buttmunch in Charge. I don't have such rules. With any book I publish, whether it is written by me or someone else, the author retains all rights to do whatever they want with their material at any time.

Now, about the poem.

The poetry form is Jueju. I wrote two quatrains with seven syllables in each line.

Pepper Baiij is the female protagonist in Team Netherworld's long-running WIP, Fetch. The first chapter of this tale emerged in November 2014. The work is nowhere near ready for publication, but new chapters and poems are always emerging. Maybe someday we'll actually have a finished product.

Kris Rooiakker is an actor with whom Pepper became obsessed in her younger days. He is a psychic vampire. He found Pepper on the astral plane and took advantage of her vulnerability and low self-esteem. Pepper's obsession with Kris cooled many years ago, but he doesn't like being ignored. He keeps coming back to pester her.

The prompt asked writers to grab a book and find a sentence, then:

Use all the words of this sentence in a poem

OR

Pick a word or phrase from this sentence for the title of your poem

OR

Use a part or the entirety of this sentence as the first or the last line of your poem

Now, as it happens, I had the manuscript for Carnal Invasion VI: The Dark Delights of Mistress Kali open for reference in working on the forthcoming Carnal Invasion XI: Good Sports. (I am also the Head Buttmunch in Charge of Naughty Netherworld Press, which is Team Netherworld Creations' lust-crazed sibling.) I found a sentence suitable for public consumption and used the words "in thrall" for the title of the poem and in the first line of the poem. Here is the original sentence.

“No, Jefe, she ain’t hurt, but she in thrall of La Jefa,” Krystal whispered. “You can peek in, sí, but don’t say nothin’. Like I say, we don’t wanna end up being prisoners.”

If you are interested in learning more about the series of novels that this book came from, visit the Naughty Netherworld Press blog, where you will find snippets from the stories and links to purchase the books.

~Cie~