Stutter
I, I, I can’t,
I can’t, I can’t
Heave these words
From black memories
To ink on a slate
When I see his eyes through the ink
Staring from the page.
I wish I could but
My memories are
Pandora’s box
I must keep it shut
I must, I must
Even if I never know
I must. Though the box bangs
And shakes and leaks blood from the lid,
Keep that thing closed
I’d rather not know the pain it brings.
Burn, burn, these memories burn.
Though no marks on my skin
There are scars within
They bleed and ooze and burn.
The cuts tear when I think,
And now I have learnt
That it is better to be mindless
Than to burn, with a brain kissed by trauma.
The lights! The lights!
Shut out the fucking lights!
No more I I I I I stutter, I can take no more
As panic shakes my soul I am a marionette
And the past yanks and twists my strings:
Memories grabs my tongue in their nails.
All this time I, I, have been blinded,
I, by the lights
I, I left behind.
Poetry by Luke Cable 