H J VandeReit
Stop
I.This weight this weight
weighing me down weighing me down
I sit I sit sit with the gnawing pain
Were I to say everything I ever thought
It's possible
The pain
Would engulf me
​
II.It’s in my head
it’s in. my heart.
I didn’t seek
I still don’t find
answers did a dream come unto me
and rape what hope I had left
did a dream come unto me
and take me away
​
III.This wound this wound
opening and closing opening and closing
i pick at the scab pick at the scab
until it bleeds and I find I cant stop picking
i can’t
stop
It won’t
stop.
​
IV.Can I be brave
can I. tell you.
I didn’t know
I never knew
what to expect
ultimately
did you steal away my heart
it wasn’t romantic, did you steal
what little I had left
to give of me away
​
V.the thoughts the thoughts
running in circles circles in running
i obsess and chase the thought but
it never ceases to escape my fingertips
i can’t
stop
it wont
stop
​
IV.did I steal you
can I keep you
in the darkest corner, dank and smelling
of all my filth, of all my pain
can I keep you
there
with me
Warning
​
Take one pill every 12 hours.
​
Would I take a fistful of you and chase you with a slug of vodka?
Would I?
Would I?
Would I let the man-made concoction numb and tingle me until I passed out?
Would I?
Would I?
​
Would the children be okay upstairs in the playroom,
until someone walked through the door
H.J VandeRiet’s work has appeared with Semicolon Magazine, BEATS Periodical, SWP Guerilla Magazine, and HSS Magazine. She holds an MFA in Writing & Poetics with the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. She perfers to write fiction, but also engages with poetry and hybrid forms. She runs a Wordpress blog called “Buslife Adventures in Parenting,” and is in the process of editing a 60,000 word manuscript. Recordings of her poetry and other works can be found on Soundcloud.
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