Poems by AJ Quanbeck
CW: abuse & self-harm consideration
The Cycle
It’s happening again.
Small hands crushed by large ones
Escape blocked
The golden boy untouchable
It’s happening again.
Skin crawling to be picked apart
Smile wheat-pasted on,
A rebellion against self
It’s happening – like it has for millennia –
Word and memory not enough, untrustworthy,
Too flexible and forgiving to be believed
When retaliation is inevitable
It’s happening again.
Loneliness turned to isolation
And I don’t know which secrets are worth keeping
It’s happening again.
Someday it’ll happen for the last time.
How many generations of mothers until that final blow?
How many fathers? How many sons?
Papercuts
We are not friends for the same reason I do not go driving at night when I am sad. I won’t see you for the same reason I don’t take out my pocket knife and hold it against the skin of my thigh, admiring how it catches the light. But your photos stay in my phone for the same reason I still know whole chapters of the Bible by heart:
what was all that for if I forget?
RRCC 