Sarah Spang

Sarah Spang Dec 2015

I am
Nothing more
Than a bag of bones.
My rib cage
Is a prison you rend
In twain, tear the mesh,
And sift fruitlessly through.
I am
An empty shell
You discarded;
All unraveled ends
And frayed edges.
I am
Orange peels
Carrying the essence
Of something sweet
As an echo of scent
And color-
-I will
Return to the earth
And start again.

Sorry for the long hiatus, been busting my **** to make a dent in some school loans, but I promise to post a bit more consistently. Thank you to the people who emailed and asked me to continue.

To make a small donation if you enjoy my poetry, visit my GoFundMe:

https://www.gofundme.com/Sarahquil

#death #bones #rebirth

Sarah Spang Nov 2015

What Comes After.

I know that we are flesh and blood;
We're bound terrestrials.
There is not a hint nor thought
In me, celestial.
And yet the final day they found
You were ephemeral,
I raised my eyes towards the skies
And sought the aerials.
I hoped the blessed, holy book
In truth, was literal.
The yearning, needing wanting hole
Was raw and pitiful.
In vain I combed the cobalt spans
For proof reciprocal
Of an eternal, lasting love
From the ethereal.
My opulence in obstinence
Brought truth from empty skies
The swirling air, the ash and dust
Is only where you fly.
There is no golden field of wheat
And barley where we'll meet
There is no paradise where I
Will once more hear you speak.
The last known home where you reside
Exists in no known creed
You live now in the dreams and thoughts.
That bring you back to me.

Sarah Spang Nov 2015

Tangerine Dreams

This sweet
Tangerine Dream
Seems like it will last beyond
The cadence of our swaying bodies
And the flickering flames.
The line of our forms,
Fluttering through the buttery warmth
Like silver and gold knives.
I sharpen on you
And you draw your edge against mine
And in that moment, we are both so sharp
And eternal,
That seems as though this will never dull,
Our feet will never tire,
And the flames will never pass into ash.

But a dream is just that;
Temporary and as lasting
As the sweet, cloying nectar
Of a tangerine.

#end #dreams #beautiful #temporary

Sarah Spang Nov 2015

The Last Paradise.

The sun tipping over the horizon
Lifts my lids each revolution of this Shady green sphere...
And for a few brief seconds
The fingers of sleep
Drag me back.

Warm pressure on my eyes,
Pooling, (re)opening them to the last
Paradise;
The only oasis where your eyes are not closed
And your bones are not dust somewhere
Mingling with the soil in Pittsburgh.

Just the same, I know you're the product now
Of some hypnagogic state;
Of the last traces of theoretical DMT swirling in my brain
As is leaves Morpheus behind in the shadows.

You're just the most beautiful hallucination
The truth in the chaos of dreams
Cluing me into what I've been denying
For 13 years.

Impossible that I've preserved you better
Than any mortician could have
In the recesses of my mind
You are a perfect replica
An unholy copy of the original
All creamy skin
And ocean eyes,
Full-lipped smile tipping somewhere between
Arrogance and joy.

"I'm gone," you say. "I'm dead."
Repeating what I already know
"I'm dead, I'm not coming back."
On repeat like the worst kind of ear worm;
A carousel of sound that dips and weaves through every filament of Unconsciousness.

Denial; like reaching out my hands
I shove against the reality, against the unreality
Against the prison sleep has woven
And crash forth
Damp and gasping
Like breaking the surface once more
Teetering over the horizon with the sun
Into the waking hell of another day.

The carousel makes another revolution.
See you on the other side tonight.

#love #death #forever #grieving

Sarah Spang Nov 2015

Sweet Coyote.

Don't ask, don't tell,
Sweet coyote, desert owl.
Cactus eyes, sand-dune skin
The warmth throughout, the heat within.

#lost #desert #temptation

Sarah Spang Oct 2015

The Day Infinity Ended.

Before this
There was infinity, reachable by tiny fingers
And wide eyes
Scraped knees and
Bobbing heads disappearing into the trees.
'Nilla wafers and nap time
Took us off through the wildest jungles
Sent you drifting with a patched eye across the ocean
With ol' blue beard

One day, stark as the contrast between warmth
And a dash of ice-water
Every illusion used to protect, to comfort
Became as crystal clear
As shattering windshield glass.

I remember that day
I remember the clutch of fabric in my small hands
The spicy, familiar scent as I pushed it into my face
Feeling no warmth behind it, no enclosure of arms
Only the carapace
Your long-sleeved second skins
That filled the rich mahogany dresser
Long after you departed with the last you'd ever wear.

Not touching the cold stranger in the box made it real;
Nor the sound of it's door as it closed.
No, not even the earth piled atop the pile of
Crushed roses
The stone bearing our names.

It was the sweet, lingering scent
The essence you left behind
That had already begun to fade;
The scent that was as unique as rain on fallen leaves
Would one day leave
Just as you did.

Sarah Spang Oct 2015

I Made Her, She Taught Me.

I created a girl
From word and lines
From paragraphs.

With characters, I shaped her face
Her long dark hair
Gold eyes
Her strength
And the inevitable weakness
We share.
I learned to love her
As a daughter, for she is mine
From my own hands
From my own heart and head
A product of a story
That needed to be told.

I loved her, and she taught me
Through her own struggles
Her own losses
That it is possible to move forward
After the end of the world
Ice will thaw and spring will follow the winter
Bodies return to the earth and feed the flowers
And love is never lost,
Only tucked away into a small pocket
Somewhere in the mysterious red ***** in our chests
Where it takes shape as another
More bearable appreciation
One that is not all flowers and lore
Or clammy hands and starry eyes.

If she can move on, when beauty seems withered
Than I will follow her steps
Beyond the last page
And walk out of that story
Back into my own
Where you and I will always occupy
A small page some place
A few sentences that had to end
To form a paragraph.

Or a Poem.

I've been taking time off this site lately (hence the sparse submissions) to work on a story I've been piecing together over the course of the last year. It's no where near finished, but it's really helped me gain perspective on my own life. And I guess I wrote this to the main character as a thank you. She's really helped me grow as a person as I've tried to place myself in her shoes. Sorry if it seems a little flowery or silly.