Published January 15th, 2025
by Emma Barry
Her who could handle the melancholy of long-term phrases.
Her as a that, that could bite into words with a never-ending hunger for more.
Her who could release herself from the anxious grips of neighbouring nails with only the marks of yesterday's width.
Her who could open a new door without strangling herself with what the space girls left behind with new entries.
Her who could hold herself with half the compassion of her past degrees and twice the capacity for floors and the winter
longing she found entrapped in the silence of their feet.
Instead of being lost in the days of daze of she.
She who has been violated so well that her words of sorrow have become her selling point and the strength within her venomous funny bone.
That somehow people drink and drain like that one bone can function as a home.
She who is the daughter of clinking bottles and Harry Flashman novels tie dyed under the bathroom sink.
Constantly and tirelessly in the desperate pursuit of beauty in the human uncondition.
But if she can write about it at least there is blame to be made. A name, a cheque, a book in her favourite bookshop.
But if it is her favourite bookshop can she even enjoy it or see beyond the dampness under the sink.
Because who is she if not the graze of church bells that fall blankly into the side rings of blue.
With their hour behind clocks tricking and ticking their way into her violated womb.
Is it because she is filled with beauty that your salt-filled stare is anxious to burn in her absence of hope?
Will you laugh as you wonder can her lips be read as they turn red telling you sweet tales of how well she can heal.
That somehow, she can still reproduce sweet lily petals even though her insides have been forced to perform as an abandoned war zone.
Her who could never handle the melancholy of long-term phrases.
Her as a that who will never be satisfied.
No matter how her words may occupy her oceanless and tideless endeavouring space.
Her who is destined to fall under the hammer of the flash that still chokes her so gentle yet relentlessly as she tries
to sleep under the deceitful warmth of enemy prints.
But as least she is pretty. That means she will be remembered in the ghost of her.
About the Poet
Emma Barry resides in Cork, County Cork, Ireland.
Read the poet's biography on Emma Barry's Artist Page.
This poem is included in Comet #4,
published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Dublin Poetry Magazine:
The Magic Press
by Sinéad Kiernan
Dublin Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
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