abuse

A Witch Among the Willows

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 13 Comments
Image courtesy of fast-growing-trees.com

Sit among the willows,

drifting in ghostly silence,

each wrapped comforted

by misery’s blanket.

Except I am no longer,

listening to words

 

carefully scripted,

tumbling into deceit’s

delicious dishes

 

easily prepared

by your thin lips mouthing words

filled with ghost meaning.

 

Regurgitated regrets

bitter in the soul and heart–

I can tell you that.

 

A thing you would not

ever know, catalyst of misery,

your starring role.

 

Except–

 

tell-tale signs of age

now crackle through songs of your

sweet, deceitful voice,

 

makes harder to catch

victims snared in misery

of life trials made.

 

Stop floating among

the willows, thinking yourself

Calypso casting

 

spells of delicious

deceit, when you’ve aged into

Macbeth’s witch drifting

in the ghostly fog of ego.

https://godoggocafe.com/2020/10/20/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-october-20-2020/
https://onewomansquest.org/2020/10/19/vjs-weekly-challenge-117-except/
https://amanpan.com/2020/10/19/eugis-weekly-prompt-ghostly-october-19-2020-%f0%9f%91%bb/

Chains of Fears

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
Image courtesy of Tumbler
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/10/17/weekend-writing-prompt-179-lucid/

Lucidity picks at the chains wrapped round a soul

Anchored to the ground of fears bought whole

In the marketplace while traipsing through dreams

Resplendent with beauty and flights of fanciful imaginings

That harsh noisy words and bruising blows etched,

Tattooed lucid fears.

A Crown of Thorns for You

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments
Image courtesy of Flickr
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/08/22/weekend-writing-prompt-171-impact/

The impact of broken glass shards–

A mistake with need to drip blood.

Make a presence known of parts

Marred and greetings sent

For what they would take,

Staking once again the claim

To snatch away, drain  

Blood from a soul

Needed to adorn

Her ego’s bleached crown,

A haystack of needles

Pricking the fingertips,

A crown of thorns in reverse,

She claims its softness for you.

 

Lessons

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 6 Comments
Dia de los muertos..makeup by June courtesy of Pintrest.com

This is the lesson of you,

Oh, the things you do teach–

Wearing your blue mantle

Lined in blackness

With your crooked fingers

Tipped in painted red do you reach

Ripping out hearts

Adding to a collection

You keep in a box.

 

Until the day of the dead,

When you light your fake fires

And scented candles,

Spread your blanket

For the time to admire

All hearts in the box of your collection,

Chant your incantations and prayers

To La Muerte for protection

From the evil you spread

And La Llorona for aid

Searching for the newest victim

From whom your red tipped claws long to rip a heart.

 

Scars of Flame

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments

My scars flames–
The sides of my back,
pock marked brown
drying dark
if not daily oiled in
the red, orange, white
of flames,
trailing once welted scars,
faded, now barely.
if even seen–
Feathered flames
enabling flight,
if I should like,
or if I so prefer,
burning back past paths
behind so I may fly
to places I wish,
keeping promises
to my soul.
My scars flame–
Only I see
and only I know
the power contained
in my flaming scars.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments

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image from Pinterest

The lies we tell ourselves
Such sparkling things.

Belief needed in the moment–
See diamonds, rubies, sapphires,
Gold, treasures to cherish.
Let the mirror reflect
The lies to eyes
And souls
In needing desire.
Do not hold them in harsh sun.
Too thin,
Too frail,
Too fragile
To withstand such blazing light.

Gently bury them deep
Beneath the soil
Of a needing heart
And the damp decay
Of foolish wants.
Let the lies take root
Growing into the very soul.

Believing
The lies
We tell ourselves,
We smile
To keep
The truth at bay,
As the lies grow
The rot of hopelessness
Into our very souls.

No Winning

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment

No winning in this loosing.

Chunks of soil eroded,
Carried away by this freezing rain.

No artifice found in storm winds,
leaving an icy slush of blood
In the veins,

Or the heated words you
Coated with never melting ice.

The fire you set
Left forever unkindled.

How you must love your
Barren winter landscape,
A frozen revenge,
A frosty meaningless game.

Lilith’s Mantle

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
from Pinterest

We reject the second mother
you would give us,
reject subjugation
of ripped rib bone,
accept not the pain
from seeking knowledge.

We have borne brutality for the ages,
Silent always,
In churches,
In governments,
In streets,
And in our homes.
Our mouths learned silence,
keeping us, at least, alive.

Oh, we were worthy of protection
As long as we were your possessions:
Your mothers, your daughters,
Your sisters, your wives.
As long as you owned us
And we did as we were told,
We lived, perhaps, unbruised.

But the brave have shown us
Through the ages and now again
They show us another way.
We find our voice,
Too strident for your ears,
But even our whispers
Are too strident for you.

You will mock us,
Vilify us, this we know.
Proudly we wear the mantle
Of the first mother,
Lilith, the one you deemed
An enemy long ago and banished.
Her spirit moves us to speak
Against the men who take
Even our bodies from us.
You may beat us, kill us,
Force us into marriage and childbearing,
Rape us, place weapons into the hands
Of the children we bear,
Weld the chains of slavery upon us,
And laughingly say we asked for it
Should we complain.

Yet after all that and more,
Our submission you will not have.
We will rise like an ocean wave
Wakened by a great quake
Beneath the sea and drown you
With the devastation of your hate.

Soon some of Lilith’s daughters
Will march. Some will wait across
The Earth.

But Lilith’s mantle
Covers us all.
The quake is coming.
The wave will free us all.

Wings

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments

A wish to follow the sun
And always know its light
Was a childhood dream.
I never wanted to know night.

Terrors happened without light,
So began my craving
For warmth and light.

The natural world and its order
Cannot satisfy such cravings.
One must learn to live without light.
An adult adjustment, a drooping in the spine
Of spirit, a caving inward happens
When childhood cravings must give way
To the knife sharp edge of the adult
World order, how one learns to avoid
The blade of reality, curl inward.

Others hammered out cages
That seemed to fit for me.
Told me to shut up and be happy.
Each wire in the cage a reason
For my unhappiness
With which the one who wielded
The hammer had nothing to do so it was claimed
Or
Each wire a welded bond of a reason
Why I should be happy
If I shut up and smiled
A pretty smile
and wept tears of happiness
Upon my fiery, welding savior.

For years, I kept silent.
Silence made for a peaceful cage,
So I had learned.

Then it happened.
My silence gathered round me,
Head to toe,
Wrapping me in darkness and warmth.
At first, panic.
Nothing good ever happened in darkness.
But I felt them start to form.
Slowly, painfully.
So painfully.
A pain I had never felt before,
Starting in my mouth,
Traveling down my throat,
Seeping out either side of my spine
Between my shoulder blades.
Giving birth had been less painful
Than this, as if new bone and tissue
Formed and moved and settled in.

After a few years,
the chrysalis of silence split open.
I spoke as my new sprouted wings dried,
“You were the wires of the cage meant
To keep me from the warmth I crave,
Meant to keep me from the stirrings of my blood.
Meant to keep me from the sun.”

I am caged no longer now.
I migrate with the sun
And all things those with cages
Sought to keep me from,
Things that stir the blood,
Things that feed on
The warmth of the sun
Are mine to alight upon.

Laughter and Dust

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments

Laughter departed,
Or died a slow death.
We weren’t sure which.

You asked why we didn’t dance
When we dusted anymore,
As we did when I taught you to do
The washing machine.

But we were told it was “nasty”
And I “ought not” teach you that.
Plus, we played “that
Jungle and Mexican music too loud.”
So, our hips and feet stilled.

Then you dusted no more,
And I couldn’t blame you.
Fun stopped breathing.
No paramedics needed.
We survived.
Forgetting the joy
of everyday.