paintedcave

Shut your mouth

© Gerry Gomez

by Megan Randolph

They tell me.
It’s not pretty
They want to shut me out
can’t cut me out
So they pull at the stitches
Caught up in trivialities and quick fixes
Caught your sleeve
Tell me to leave
Again
Tell me
Again
Press send.

I’m dangerous now
I know you’ll regret it
See I’m dangerous somehow
Don’t let this end
Numb
That’s how I feel
Sick of the bullshit damaging what’s real
Underneath makeup and lip stain
The biggest bitches are just little girls in pain.

And I wish you didn’t feel like that was all you had
The pain you could inflict with the movement of your hand
And I stayed still
I fucking stayed still
Blood boiling hot enough to kill
Chess check yourself before I
Checkmate
Wiser now but it’s too late
For me
But there are others I know you love
In the future I hope you can rise above
The pressure.
I know you can do better
You lash out
And it hurts like a bitch
But I’d rather bleed than see that bitch in the mirror
You don’t look for long out of fear.

My head hurts, I have to get out.
That’s my only goal- that’s my mission
Never gonna be the wife who takes that shit in the kitchen
I can’t be whole with insides missing.

People pick you up and they fucking drop you
I know how it feels to be shattered on the ground
Alone and scattered
But you can’t look down. You can’t look up
So your
Tightly closed eyes no longer give a fuck.
But
I fucking dare you to touch me again.
Will you still play now if you know I win?
You started this game
To get rid of your pain
But these little drops just built up and drowned you in the rain.
At the funeral they’ll wonder if you were insane,
why you couldn’t find your way out when it poured so slowly….

But I know how hard it is to see when life gets so blurry
Water in your eyes so you wanted power over me in a hurry
And here’s what’s left:
I left.
And I wish you the best.

French Rats

Cutting remarks slash through warm summer air
floral print dresses
hot cigarettes in their hands kill witty brains with wild hair
Hitchhiked to get here and she doesn’t take shit
Rough laughter echoes out from where we sit
books in our bags
Saturating our minds
She snaps “bloody hell” after spilling some wine
We walk the cobblestone path along the Seine
try to balance empty beer bottles on our heads
like ladies
Men walk by—call
“Bonjour ladies bonjour
very beautiful what are you doing ladies?”
While smaller and far more innocent rats scurry along the walls, sticking to the shadows.

Bio
Megan Randolph is in her third and final year of Santa Barbara City College. She is passionate about writing as a way to understand all of the beauty and pain in the world. It allows her to explore the profoundly interesting aspects of the human experience and share her perspective.