#sad dawn/sundown
-Hot Tub of Despair,’ an underwater lake in the Gulf of Mexico. A collaborative effort by Oneg In The Arctic and Melissa Ingoldsby
My good friend Oneg and I collaborated to write this poem based on body dysphoria and the grief / anxiety that comes with it. Please check out their amazing writing and truly inspiring poetry today!
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Skin hangs on a body too tight, off kilter and in outdated shade of gender
The deep sea despair creeps inside of my mind like a ghost that cries in the sad dawn,
so utterly exhausted in their longing
An ache so deep it is almost unseen
Underneath the salty blue
the dark death lingers in the twisted guts of the living, locking up my body like a frozen corpse
Moving underneath the intense pressure, it’s a stunning pain unlike any other
Feeling the distance from the sun, I am gradual in my desire to be unlocked with confidence in love
The design of my creation dropped from heaven in a matter of a desaturated palette
The wrong shade of gender too blue, too tucked into the damp recesses of normalcy
Like a twin who has a birthmark the other does not, covered up by a clotted cream
An ache to be reborn united both in the womb and in the bloody aftermath
The guttural scream never meant to accompany you into adulthood
Yet the initial cry released from barely built vocal chords echoes across the waters
Trying to bridge the distance between self and sun
But oceans swallow sound
Crying goes unheard
Worse than in forests where trees fall to their wooden knees and no one knows
I fall to my bruised knees and think
This colour cannot cover the unmatched parts of me
No matter the coats of paint
It peels off in layers leaving skin too raw
Too red
Like fresh salt in the wound this feeling of dissociation creeps inside my mind
Like a ghost howling at sundown
Begging for a better chance
Unmasked in the secret underground prison of blue
About the Creator
Melissa Ingoldsby
I am a published author on Patheos,
I am Bexley by Resurgence Novels
The Half Paper Moon on Golden Storyline Books for Kindle.
My novella The Job and Atonement will be published this year by JMS Books
Keep reading
More stories from Melissa Ingoldsby and writers in Poets and other communities.
Smartystan
Rain didn’t stop Mala. Swaddling for Edgar covered the baby boy’s body and she held her other son’s, Burton, six-year-old hand. The mud, muck, and mire didn’t hinder her from staying on course with her mission. From Pennsylvania, they all trekked to get closer and closer to land that was never promised but simply implied. Each step produced more mud caked around her sneakers. She didn’t care. Her rucksack provided them protein packs to put into plastic bottles and nuts and berries and dried meats to keep their muscles in good health. Water hydrated. She rested. The baby had been asleep the entire time that she had started her journey and her eldest son remained silent throughout the excursion as well.
By Skyler Saundersa day ago in Chapters
Comments (6)
Whoaaaa, this was so intense, emotional, poignant and relatable. Both you and Oneg did such a magnificent job with this poem!
Your all work are marvelous You don't need any comments.
Brilliantly and beautifully written!!! Loved it!!!
Well-wrought! Subjectivity is barely explored--the individual barely born--and I fear those exceptions who must venture out of the cluttered norm have made a grave mistake turning--backwards--to the norm asking to be normalized for solace. Better to struggle toward the light in vain than seek acceptance from the darkness whence we emerge, if only because it will accept us back to its fold, eventually... regardless. Better that it accept us as a sun then as a shadow. "Trying to bridge the distance between self and sun" Yours is a beautiful soul. I see it. Your cries are not unheard. When we stray too deep into the dark night of the soul we must become our own sun.
Haunting body of work. This line caught my breath: "The guttural scream never meant to accompany you into adulthood". Impact received.
#yes