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Grief Tattoos
Poems of Rage and Redemption
by Christopher Reilley
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Excerpts
Grief Tattoos
There are moments that leave footprints on your soul,
abrasions upon your dignity.
When harbingers of the negative
impart with a lasting kiss
a grief tattoo,
lest you forget that you ever hurt.
Breathing of a wounded wind
is enough to remind you how badly it hurt,
enough to sear the memory into scar.
I own no more of the sky than you,
yet that which surrounds me
is mine, and mine alone.
The question that remains,
the one that no answer will still,
is what do we do with the phantoms,
the ones who whip and play
within my hair,
the ones who cry out
with the voices of hemispheres
and speak directly to my blood?
Odd Man Out
He pushes into the crowd
trying to be part of the circle,
talking ‘cool’
or ‘tough’,
although he is neither.
“Wanna see my knife?”
he wheedles,
as if that were enough
to make him a man.
When they joke
he sneers,
“That ain’t funny,
let me show you funny,”
and then he falls
on his face.
No matter the subject,
no matter the speaker,
he is a seagull
dropping his waste
over everything they have,
incensed at his exclusion.
Alternately gruff
and ingratiating,
his failure
at joining the ‘In’ crowd
eats him thin,
so he tries again
using the same techniques,
expecting different results.
They laugh at him
to his face
and behind his back,
keeping him around
as a jester
without giving him the freedom
of a jester
to speak his mind.
I never told him
I was glad he was there,
so the odd man out
did not have to be me.
Purchase Grief Tattoos here.
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