Poetry Portfolio

 The Whole - Sophia Sturgeon

Table of Contents

Goodbye, August                        3

Sutures                                        5

Chloe Louise                              6

To The One I Hate the Most       7

Breakfast Boy                             8

Sutures Re-Imagined                10

Goodbye, August 

August speaks in tongues and orange;

Whispering rusty secrets,

like the ones that live

in the locket around my sister’s neck.

The locket tells of a past life:

A pretty girl, Margaret, on the Mardi Gras court in 1967.

August tells of past lives too,

But she belongs to no one.

“I will not stay,” August sings to me;

And I should know as well,

I was never one to linger either.

Once, when I was young, and the world was smaller,

I knew of a place where August came and read her books to me;

under rotting wooden bridges,

upon sandy riverbanks,

beneath trees she’d touched with her frost-bitten hands.

As auburn leaves would brush my paling skin,

I sat patiently beneath her sturdy oak trees.

I listened intently as she read the words with great leisure,

never rushing or skipping pages.

She told me tales of frozen streams,

children in yellow rain boots,

and fireplaces with fresh cut wood.

I loved her dearly

but the air became too bitter for a girl so faint.

Like I child, I cried when she left.

But,

She welcomed September,

October.

So, I grew to know them too.

I used to know when they were coming to visit me.

The air would fill with cinnamon and cloves,

maple and mulled cider;

that same fragrant breeze would paint my lips

the color of the muddled grapes in my mother’s

crystal glass.

September was timid

and spoke his name with diffidence.

He replaced August’s amber leaves with

layers of thin, crispy ice that coated the riverbanks

where she would read to me.

I didn’t care for him;

He breathed the cold that exiled my August.

October became my favorite companion—

She brought me gifts:

Gourds with sharp teeth and eyes as bright

as the oil rig that combusted on Leadville Avenue,

wind that tugged on my hair playfully,

and sometimes, if I were lucky,

she would grace the sky with elegant, white jewels.

Once, when I was young, and the world was smaller,

I knew of a place where August came and read her books to me.

I knew of a place where September exiled August.

I knew of a place where October brought me presents.

Now, that I am old, and the world is vast and wide, all I know is

concrete and metal,

sweltering skies and pink terrazzo stars,

buildings much taller than the trees I used to climb as a child.

These friends of mine do not visit so wholly here.

There are no trees for August to trace—no leaves to convert.

There are no riverbanks for September to frost.

There are no doorsteps for October to leave me eerie gifts.

Sometimes I can hear them whisper my name;

Pining for me.

I pine for them,

just the same. 

Sutures

I never learned how to sew a body back up;

How to use thin, black thread to make someone whole.

But I can imagine how the process goes:

Soft, white flesh pulled taut & carefully

mended back together. Stitches working hand in hand

to create a shield for the previously splayed guts.

I never learned how to fall in love correctly. I was gutted

when I chose to give in to my first boyfriend, only for him to give up

on me. Hadn’t I graced his mouth with mine? Hadn’t I held his hand?

Hadn’t I touched his skin? Was love supposed to ache? He poked a hole

through my heart; a pencil through paper. I patched it up with great care,

& determined that this is how love goes.

I never learned when to stay & when to go.

People always tell you to, “Listen to your gut.”

I never thought to ask, “But, what if I still care?”

Nobody told me that sometimes, someone you still love will give up

on you. So, I stay until they do. I wait out the whole

procedure knowing full well, the outcome is never fully in my hands.

I never learned when & how to handle

the desolation that swims in my consciousness. At 19, I’d go

out late, chase my fears with orange juice & an unholy

amount of gin, & wait until my gut

squirmed with undigested feelings. This unease then climbed up

& dug its nails into whichever dive-bar-stranger looked like they’d care.

I never learned how to prevent myself from caring.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, but I always keep that hand

in my pocket. I close down & let them open up.

I take their pain as mine; absorb and absorb until every part of me is gone,

gutted,

stripped from me wholly.

I never learned how to trust somebody with my whole

being. Unveiling my scars to someone was a prospect I never cared

for. But he is no someone. He is him. I hate his guts

for how much I love him. He has handed

me his heart on a silver platter, but it pains me to take it. As the saying goes:

what goes up, must come down—& I’m afraid to go up.

I never learned how to stitch a body back up, & I was never going to. But last night,

I spilled my guts to him. I love you. Blood pooled through the hole in my abdomen. He used

his careful hands as a tourniquet & told me not to worry; he knew how to stitch a body back up.

Chloe Louise

I’m not sure I believe in soulmates but I believe in her and I believe in us and I believe there’s beauty in it all and I believe there’s beauty in my fingers braiding her hair before soccer practice and the way the golden strands would cross over one another and make tiny X’s all the way down her back and gently remind me that she will always be the X to my O and I think there’s beauty in us sitting on her ex boyfriend’s rickety dock at 7 before anyone else had woken up and we’d laugh because that’s what we are good at and our laughs would echo because the lake is small and it is surrounded by rocky peaks and lush pine trees and they like to remind us how funny we are so our laughs would bounce back in the early morning air and then we’d laugh even harder and I think there’s beauty in us stealing alcohol from my mom’s liquor cart even though my mom always told everyone that she doesn’t fear leaving her liquor on display with a 16 year old in the house because she knew my character and she knew I wouldn’t do that but what she didn’t know was that it was so fun to be drunk with your best friend and laugh until you cried so we’d take the green Nalgene with the friendship bracelet tied to the lid that was really crooked and ugly because I didn’t know what I was doing when I made it and we’d use the green Nalgene to take a little bit of everything (because we were not exclusive) so gin would swim with whiskey and then invite citrus vodka to the party and then rum would come hangout and then we’d be left with a green Nalgene filled with brown liquid that could kill a small child and we’d plug our noses and drink it and laugh again because that’s what we are good at and I think there’s beauty in her picking me up from school in a blue Honda CRV starting in the 6th grade with her brother at the wheel who was so cool and played music that shaped our music taste and thank god for that and then she got her license and he graduated so she picked me up every day before high school (even after I got my license) and we’d listen to the songs her brother used to play and watch the frost melt off the car windows and sit in the school parking lot for a few minutes before class and laugh because that’s what we are good at and I think there’s beauty in us saying goodbye because we got too old for our town and we cried colossal, ugly tears because we realized how wonderful and awful it felt to go from eleven to eighteen in the blink of an eye and we laughed through salty streams as we remembered the fights we had about boys and those three weird months our sophomore year where she hung out with Ellie more than me and then all the times we made up because having a sister is better than being right and then we cried harder because even though we knew it wasn’t a real goodbye it felt like the end of something really good and our stomachs ached with nostalgia and a million unspoken words and I think there’s beauty in that and I think there’s is beauty in the way we call each other every week to laugh because that’s what we are good at and I like the way her laugh sounds like she will always be the X to my O.

To the One I Hate the Most

You are guttural and slimy, and you make my fingers clam

Make my liver lurch, heart palpitate, and turn my words to sand

If my mind’s a vacant desert, you’re the rain that never pours

There are seven deadly sins, but I believe you make one more.

You are rotten foods and rusty spoons, and paper cuts in my head

What I’d give to dream and softly sleep, now I fear a twin sized bed

With floral sheets, stale laundry piles, and books I’ll never read

It was cozy once, held all my love, now it's a product of your greed

My bygone dreams scream to me now, and ask why I don’t come around,

I miss the way my eyes would shut, and I’d voyage through holy ground

In a world that’s filled with foreign kingdoms, and all my lost memories

But you are drenched in malice, so you soaked my dreams in insanity

Misery loves company and you’re the loneliest of all

So, you steal all your companions with your sickening siren call

You took me as a child, and you never gave me back

Wasn’t 12 too young for you to come and paint my blue skies black?

You made my mind a prison, a cage with no exit door

It is cold and it is lonely, and wet cement covers all the floors

I can lift my feet and try to leave, but a piece is always there

An attempt to scrape, or wash it off, I would’ve even dare

On occasion I slip through the cage—it’s finite, but I am free,

But the grey goop stays to remind me of the hold you have on me

You ask me loaded questions, so I second-guess what’s true:

Is he bored of you? Were you ever loved?  Like bullets from the blue

Your gun is fully loaded; your ammo can’t run dry

Your safety never does its job, you claim that it is shy

You let it hide, and you never seek, cause’ you don’t want the shots to end

You bruise me like a Georgia peach as you pummel me with lead

I take your blows like a champion, I prefer skin, to an ego, bruised

I would rather stand on shards of glass than admit that I’ve lost to you.

Our battle, it is endless; you stay armed with your rusted sword

Red pills the size of thumbtacks serve as my soldiers in our great war.

Breakfast Boy

You broke an egg effortlessly this morning,

Into a crystal cup.

It’s yolky insides separating

against the gentle collision of your metal fork

I watched as the yellow swirled

Around and around and around

Each cell severed by your hand

I don’t mind the severing, so long as you’re full.

You broke an egg this morning.

You broke the silence suddenly last night,

With a voice that I love like my childhood home.

Three whispered words puncturing

the muffled air with their serrated edge: I love you.

As you spoke, I spun through uncharted air.

You caught me with magnetic fingertips

that pulled my sterling silver skin closer to you.

An uncomfortable, beautiful sensation

I love you.

You broke the silence last night.

You’ve broken my worst habit valiantly since I’ve loved you,

With a sword of lilies and a shield of roses.

I used to chase knights with molded pasts,

Who pawned their mold off on me.

I fell victim to fair-weathered cavaliers.

They were my only vice; the pain they caused like nicotine.

But then came you:

the purging of this unbridled addiction.

You’ve broken my worst habit since I’ve loved you.

I hope you never break the unspoken oath

that we made through tin can telephones.

Two kids sharing secrets and making promises

they pray the world, and time, will let them keep.

You are mine,

& I am yours, forever.

If our garden is Eden,

and God is fair,

I will love you for my whole life.

I just hope you are still around to hear me say it.

I hope our oath never breaks.

I hope you never break the mold we’ve made,

with newfound malevolence or greed.

Keep our plaster pristine and stay

the same boy who holds my hand in the dark.

Stay the same boy who cooks me breakfast.

Scrambled eggs look beautiful in the frying pan;

or perhaps it’s you that relieves my sore eyes.

I never liked breakfast before you.

I hope you never break the mold we’ve made.

I hope you never break my annealed heart.

I know lilies can kill and roses have thorns,

but that is not how I know them to be.

When you feel the urge to be cruel, play nice.

Play so nice you hurt me:

Tell me I’m yours and watch my eyes

swim with tears.

Pull me in to your chest and feel my heart

rip from my ribs.

Hold my hand tight and see my fingers

go comfortably numb.

Just, please,

don’t break my heart.

Sutures Re-imagined

How do you use thin, black thread to make someone whole?

Well, let me tell you how the process goes:

Soft, white flesh is pulled taut and carefully

mended back together. Stitches work hand in hand

to create a shield for the previously splayed guts.

This is how you sew a body back up.

When I chose to give in to my first boyfriend, he gave up

on me. Hadn’t I touched his skin and given him all of me? He poked a hole

through my heart, a pencil through paper. I was 16, alone and gutted.

Was love supposed to ache? I determined that this is how love goes.

Hadn’t I graced his mouth with mine? Hadn’t I held his hand?

Trivial questions. I patched up my mess of a heart with great care.

I never thought to ask, “But what if I still care

long after they’re gone?” Nobody told me that to love is to give up

all control. You can try to heal someone only for them to bite the hand

that fed them. So, I stay until they do. I wait out the whole

procedure, hold them close, and wait until they tell me to go.

If you ask me, knowingly awaiting your own heartbreak takes guts.

Have you ever felt orange juice and gin swim in your gut?

It feels like nails digging into your consciousness and begging you to care

about your momentarily forgotten desolation. At 19, I’d go

take them for a swim until I squirmed with this undigested unease. It climbed up

and looked for a stranger’s lap to crawl into. I knew it was unholy,

but to feel anything felt more disgusting than buying another handle.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, but I always keep that hand

in my pocket, so I think I must be entirely empty with no ounce of guts

in my body. Maybe if my skin were peeled and stripped from me wholly,

you would see nothing but a hollow skeleton who only knows how to care

too much. I close down & let people open up.

I take their pain as mine; absorb and absorb until every part of me is gone.

But this one feels different. He gave me his heart on a silver platter; now, where do I go

from here? I love his doe-eyes and his lips and his hands.

They say what goes up must come down—& I’m afraid to go up.

He is Everest. He is the rollercoaster at the county fair. He is him. I hate his guts

for how much I love him. Unveiling my scars to someone was a prospect I never cared

for. I never learned how to trust somebody wholly.

How do you stitch a body back up? I thought I knew. But, last night, I spilled my guts to him. I love you. Blood pooled through the hole in my abdomen and all that I knew was gone. He used his careful hands as a tourniquet & told me not to worry; he knew how to stitch a body back up.