Carrie Van Horn: Favorites

16h Carrie Van Horn

F Elliott

It was not the beast alone
that hollowed the soul,
but the silence
that made a chamber for it.

The silence of fathers
who looked away.
The silence of mothers
who smoothed the tablecloth
and spoke of other things.
The silence of friends
who chose comfort
over confrontation.

Every unspoken word
became a shroud.
Every careful pause
became a nail.
Every smile that denied
became another grave.

The beast feasted,
not only on wounds inflicted,
but on truths unspoken,
on the complicity
of quiet mouths.

And so silence
killed more surely than rage,
for rage at least
named what was broken,

but silence gave it a home.

The deadliest weapon
that lays in the hands
    of Death  itself
    is not the sword;

but the silence sharpened
     against the soul.

What destroys us most often is not what is done, but what is left unsaid. Families, friends, communities.. complicity thrives in silence. Every unspoken truth becomes a stone, every quiet denial a grave. This piece speaks to the deadliest accomplice of the beast: not hatred, but silence.

And yet, even within silence, the cry still trembles. It leaks through scars, through hidden eyes, through the fragile flame that refuses to die.
These words are for every soul who has lived inside that chamber, unseen but not alone.
Plumb gives voice to that cry.

What if the “cut” is not a blade at all, but truth itself--
naming the wound, naming the perpetrator,
breaking the silence that becomes a second trauma
worse than the first?
Sharp though it is, such a cut
can become the only one that heals--
the deepest relief of all...

"Cut"

I'm not a stranger
No I am yours
With crippled anger
And tears that still drip sore

A fragile flame aged
With misery
And when our eyes meet
I know you see

I may seem crazy
Or painfully shy
And these scars
wouldn't be so hidden
If you would just
look me in the eye

I feel alone here and cold here
Though I don't want to die
But the only anesthetic that
makes me feel anything kills inside

I do not want to be afraid
I do not want to die inside
  just to breathe in
I'm tired of feeling so numb

Relief exists,   I find it when

    I am cut

https://youtu.be/OJkqkWIpFAI?si=hMaAlmoUB_OnEoOG

Better the wound of truth than the grave of silence;

To those who have carried the weight of numbness,
Plumb’s voice  becomes
their own cry of solidarity

xoxo

#love #childhoodtrauma #familydysfunction #denial #silence #life #death #truth #solidarity #eternity

20h Carrie Van Horn

WHAT WOMEN WANT

20h Carrie Van Horn

Blue Sapphire

WHAT WOMEN WANT

To be seen —
not as an object of desire,
but as another human being.

To be seen—
for what she is made of,
for what strengths she carries within
and
not for what she covers her body with.

To be admired
not for her beautiful body
but for the beauty within.

Her voice to be heard
and not her screams.

To have dignity —
in life and in death.

To have self-respect.

Is it too much to ask for?

22h Carrie Van Horn

Night Stalker

22h Carrie Van Horn

Susie Clevenger

Night Stalker

Window shades
d
e
s
c
e
n
d
in weary blinks
as night taps glass
with intrusive eyes
preying on exposure.

#night #exposure

22h Carrie Van Horn

Empty | Haiku

22h Carrie Van Horn

LL

Empty | Haiku

I have within me
a thousand year's worth of want —
and an empty bed

2025/120

#haiku

2d Carrie Van Horn

Busy Oak Afternoons

2d Carrie Van Horn

Shay Caroline Simmons

Busy Oak Afternoons

I was young once, living on hope and ten dollars
in an upstairs flat in Royal Oak, Michigan.

I used to eat at The Busy Oak, where junkies and drunks lived in the weird apartments on the second and third floors.
I went to the movies at The Washington.

I remember buying a jacket at Joe's Army Navy Surplus,
and a bright red scarf at some corner boutique where 80s chic was so thick that it made this ordinary girl feel out of place.

The sky was a brilliant September blue that day,
and I was on my last fine free days of being semi-employed,
an art I had perfected all through my twenties...

I needed time to read Vonnegut and Tolstoy,
and to go see Far From The Madding Crowd and Desert Hearts.

Late that afternoon I sat on the wood floor of my little place,
listening to Joni sing I Had A King, while I read the album jacket and my dog slept in the only chair.

My door was open, as if to let the future in;
I was getting sober and I was getting older.

Who knew then that I would shortly get a real job, a car,
and marry some other damaged soul?

Who knew that the Busy Oak would become trendy stores for out of towners,
or that The Washington would become a stage theater?

Who knew that I would ride by those places every day, a couple of decades later,
having divorced, come out, come clean,

Or that I would still listen to Joni sing about kings and seagulls,
and still wear a red scarf against the chill?

Not me,
whoever I was,
waving to her future self
going by on the street like a ghost begun
but not yet walking the earth.
_

2012

#travelstories #jonimitchell #busyoak #time #memory #change

2d Carrie Van Horn

Sunny

2d Carrie Van Horn

Shay Caroline Simmons

Sunny

When I met you, you were day-sleeping in somebody else's car
and running around scrapping all night.

With your shaggy hair and that roll of your shoulders,
you made me jelly-kneed right from the start.

Sunny, you kept your loneliness hidden from your running buddies,
your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars in the Texas night.

I kept you coming back by feeding you, like some Italian mother
with a full pantry and a real bad crush. Come onna my house, birichino.

You had nothing, expected nothing, and were fearless, so fearless,
but when I fussed over some new cut you turned boneless as butter.

When I drank you turned to a rumor, gone like smoke, hating the stuff
yourself, and somehow above it. You made me want to kick loose of it, like you.

How did I charm you into staying, my gorgeous one?
How did we teach other what love was, with your silence and my words?

Til the day I die I know my heart is full of you, and all that you gave me.
I held you in my arms as you gasped and ran free, in the black hour of your end.

Oh, I learned to care again, about life, about myself, about it all,
but it took a long terrible while. and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Girls always fell for you like autumn leaves, light as sighs, stars of a moment.
I know how lucky I was to be the one you gave your heart to.

It's been thirty-two years and I still say your name and picture your face
every day. Even the angels won't be able to tame you--I won't let them.

Wait for me. When my hours are over I will find you. I will come running.
_

2025

3d Carrie Van Horn

suddenlight

3d Carrie Van Horn

Emirhan Nakaş

suddenlight

Sudden sparks of light that hit the face right there,
When the eyes are closed and the vehicle is moving somewhere
That is drenched with golden caress of sun, totally bare.

I crave inventing a name for this event, completely pure,
The brain is an association machine, for sure.
"Suddenlight" my mind whispers, no need to feel unsure.

A definition as warm as our scene in my mind that i placed in a golden frame:
Flamecolored we were, in the end we both came,
Certainly, it was a mutual game...

suddenlight (n.)

1. The fleeting sensation of sunlight striking the face and closed eyelids, often while in motion, producing a golden, dreamlike glow.

2. A sudden spark of warmth or clarity felt as if from within.

3d Carrie Van Horn

Black and Blue

3d Carrie Van Horn

Susie Clevenger

Black and Blue

I am more than a dress,
a blues song you clothe me in
so your darkness won’t feel
as heavy as your tongue.

Where there’s bone there’s wings.
I can fly a sky of notes you can’t write
because freedom is a place in me
you can’t find.

Will and weather, cloud and feather,
what you think you hold isn’t even in your hands.
This black and blue bird is a sister of crows.
When the spirit says go, a ****** will grow.

I wrote this for those who’ve suffered abuse.

#abuse #strength #warning

5d Carrie Van Horn

Pantry Chef

5d Carrie Van Horn

Shay Caroline Simmons

Pantry Chef

When I was younger,
I washed lettuce heads in cold water.
I would set them on my cutting board, gently,
as if my hands hummed with lullabies.

I lifted tomatoes from their cardboard carton beds
and lined them in a row like nursery babies,
my starched jacket always white and clean.

I knew romaine and bibb,
beefsteak and cherry.
I kept my hair tied back, my nails short,
the right knife sharp and at the ready.

I didn't know, then
that lovers remember the wine, not the greens;
the sugar, not the side plate.

I wish you were here to kiss my hands
with their swollen knuckles and cut scars.
What was I doing with my tenderness
when I had someone who wanted it?

When I was younger,
I had a paying job, a small talent,
and a driver with a dolly at the back door
coming every day to keep my walk-in cooler stocked.

I thought that was bounty.
I thought there was no harm in staying on through another fall,
never considering that what I made was not mine,
Or that someone else was paying for it all.
_

written 2012, edited slightly 2025

#chef #food #restaurant

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