Behind The Counter

Behind The Counter    

Clean and quiet

Quiet and clean

A man still boy

a human still forming

Does he yearn for the opposite

or is he mirror-biased

Has he lost the dreams of childhood

or transformed them to goals in life

Does he even know his desires

or is he still trapped in underoos and cherrios

His mind’s an unmade purchase

an unseen sale

across an artificial moat

in a plastic retail forest

Tressa Lee Breen

January 11, 2014

Headless

Headless     

There’s a headless person sitting on my couch

No it’s not as bad as that

no blood

no gore

no skin

just no head that’s all

No features to tell sex

(or even if they’ve had any)

A plaid shirt, denim pants

with old scuffed up workboots

waiting patiently for its top to come rolling back

(or perhaps being pulled back by its tongue)

It’s been there for sometime

not a sound

not a smell

not a move

I don’t look at it directly

I don’t sit in the same room

but it’s around me always

in or out of house

It’s become my inner shadow

and my skin has taken on a bluish tinge

my feet feel like dark old leather

I have to hold my head very still now

for my neck bones crack at the slightest nod

or smallest attempt at food

I fear it will soon have no reason

to stay sitting on my couch

Tressa Lee Breen

January 6, 2014 

Wake The Dead

Wake The Dead    

Clawing through clumps of dirt

stones break my nails

flesh opens like a grave filled with one still breathing

and the soil becomes damp with my blood

Am I pulling myself up

is there a coffin at my back

or

am I wrapped in heavy starless night

and going down to find the rest of me

The earth is so comforting

silky grains of sand flow by me

so restful

so distracting

like a blanket that seems so warm

that one does not feel the weight

the smothering

for years

The casket cover becomes a lover

The empty evening becomes an embrace

Sedative not seductive

Complacent not comfort

Paralyzed not peace

It doesn’t matter if I dig up or dig down

so long as I dig out

past the clumps of lost time

through the pain my stupidity costs me

I will not waste my blood again

Tressa Lee Breen

January 3, 2014

Hard Cover

Hard Cover   

I can feel the rolls on my back

when I lie down at the end

they crunch up against each other

like memories of mistakes

and keep me wandering the bed

for the position that allows peace

Memory zombies

never stay dead

never stay buried

but instead lumber on

through altered states and altered scenarios

woulda coulda shoulda

all become black-eyed dogs

barking the chill of eternity

I though I’d find the way

to burn my name into the sun

Now I can’t find a way

to ban the monsters to the closet

and to stop the wicked little things under my bed

from following me

scritch scritch scritch

Sleep and food are my goals

hardening my actions

atrophying ambitions

now covered in cloth of stone

Tressa Lee Breen

December 16, 2013