It's Still Life

Two version of the same piece. The first is written as a haibun for dVerse Poets using the word “night”. The second version is the original that uses linebreaks, created as a free-write exercise for prompt #2 at The Twiglets.

I.
Run Away

I’ve drawn over my childhood where there’s no children’s hour, no storybook sunshine springing green rags. I remember cursing the walls, whispering to the mirror, to myself lest someone hear. Standing there on the far side of midnight, banging my head on green hydrangea wallpaper with its perfectly matched seamed patterns, there brushing my teeth in such anger that they bled pink storms and floods, and I said to the wall, to the mirror, to that swollen green wallpaper, “If I don’t get out of here tonight, I’ll drown in the weight of her water.”

Winter’s anaemic days
could not return its colour.
A cut against the grain.

 
II.
Run Away

I’ve drawn over my childhood —
this is no children’s hour,
no storybook sunshine
springing green rags.

I remember whispering to walls,
to the mirror, to myself lest
someone hear. Standing there
on the other side of midnight,

deep in green hydrangea wallpaper
with perfectly matching seams,
there brushing my teeth with
such anger that they bled pink

storms and floods, and I said
to the wall, to the mirror,
to that weary green wallpaper,

If I don’t get out of here tonight,
I’ll drown in the weight of her water.

for dVerse Haibun #27 and The Twiglets #2. Image is from Unsplash: no restriction on use CC:00