patchwork girl (haiku)

sins of her father

black swatches and blue ribbons

of mother’s neglect

she’s a patchwork girl

pieces stitched together by

vivid crimson thread

~Melanie Thomason

Reblog in honor of Blue Monday

escape

her family

lacking humanity

embraced their insanity

“loved” with brutality

made home a monstrosity

hell—

or at least in the vicinity

she had to get away

or be lost in their depravity

◊

baptized by poetry

words strengthened her immunity

to escape her biology

to leave them in her history

a change in geography

gave her new opportunity

to make a new reality

and write her own story

◊

~Melanie Thomason

Shameless

Yes…I’m promoting my book.

No…I don’t mind if you promote it too! 😉

Go ahead and blog about it, tweet it and share it on facebook 🙂

You could even read it and write a review if you’re game 😀

 

My second collection of poetry, Moonpies & Naugahyde: A Childhood Survived,  is available on Amazon. Fabulous watercolor paintings by Georgiann Carlson accompany my poems throughout, creating a book I am extremely proud of!

 

3 options available now on Amazon:

1-Full Color Edition: Watercolor Illustrations presented in Full Color

This is the way this collection is meant to be experienced!

2-Black & White Edition: Watercolor Illustrations presented in Greyscale

3-Ebook for your Kindle, iPad, etc.

↓

→ Just click on this link!!←

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---

OH and you can also get my first book, Spectrum: Watercolored Words

just click here!

a coffee can and a box of…

Beth kept her hopes and her dreams in an old coffee can

secreted away in the back of the pantry

it was the only  place for them

she daren’t keep them in her head

for fear they might just slip out of her mouth

no, that would not do at all

they wouldn’t tolerate any such nonsense

’cause her dreams weren’t their dreams

so she just had to keep them safe for now

and at least, there in the can,

they wouldn’t be crushed or forgotten

•

Beth kept her money in a tampon box

in plain view in the bathroom cabinet

the one place she knew for sure it would never be found

(he would never touch them and she was past that time in her life)

spare change mostly, left over from running errands

some weeks there wasn’t a nickle unaccounted for

occasionally she was able to squirrel away a dollar

still her “get-the-hell-out-of-here” fund was slow growing

it had taken years but she finally had enough (not a lot but enough)

and she was excited to be going

she would live her own life and never look back

•

Beth knew

there was no hope of ever pleasing her

and he would never STOP

that DNA wasn’t everything

and courage wasn’t genetic

so with all her “crazy thoughts” in her head

a backbone and her “attitude” firmly in place

she left with nothing

except a coffee can

and a box of tampons.

~Melanie Thomason

 

angry

 

Billy was an angry man

he hated his own life

but instead of making changes

he took it out on his children & his wife

his hands, his belt, a wooden spoon;

anything in reach would do

and after every vicious assault

he made sure they knew it was their fault

~Melanie Thomason

Source: angry

p

pausing,

palms pocketed

privately pondering

perplexing problems

petrifying past programming

prostrates

Melanie Thomason

pablum

I was bottle fed bigotry

Prejudices were pablum

To be swallowed without question

Did my teething on intolerance

I was fed spoonful after spoonful

of mashed bananas with racism

washed down with hypocrisy

Before I lost my baby teeth

I knew that girls were less than

I was fed a steady diet of hate

and lies

and pride?

∴

I was fed this set of beliefs as a child

My guess is You were fed some hatred too

But we are no longer being Force fed

I’ve changed my diet, have you?

~Melanie Thomason

let my soul shine

dirty, dark urges

stole all of my firsts

I was too little,

too young

to fight

how could I

let my soul shine

bruised and bleeding

doubting

my worth

feeling deserving

of my poor,

white

plight

how could I

let my soul shine

foul, muscled hands

muffled my cries

in the night

somehow I knew to

let my soul shine

living in darkness

that tried to

smother

all light

I had to try to

let my soul shine

i couldn’t make them love me

try

as I might

still, I had to

let my soul shine

from my family’s cage

at fourteen,

this bird

finally

took flight

to freely

let my soul shine

⊗

~Melanie Blackwell

To say I felt an emotional connection with Maya Angelou’s poetry would be an understatement.  

The above poem is my meager tribute to a phenomenal woman. I leave you with a quote.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”

― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter