Writings
Ayanna's Writings
Poetry, memoirs, and short stories.
Our Misunderstandings
The misunderstanding of my perception,
Feels like shattered glass entering my,
Already opened wounds.
These salt water burns have never gone away,
For they have made themselves a home in me and called this body theirs.
I call out for help but nobody hears me;
My voice has been a stolen right taken from me years ago,
And I'm still trying to learn how to speak again.
So when I say that I'm drowning in this pain,
Please understand that I would find comfort in telling you my deepest secrets,
If I could only speak the words.
For this lack of understanding isn't a fault of mine;
It isn't yours either,
Instead it is the fault of this monster that has been growing inside of me,
From all those years of pain.
Random Entry
There is no joy in solitude
But solitude keeps haunting me.
This teary pit has made itself bigger than sewers
And has imprisoned me.
Hidden Treasures
I've struggled,
I have lost;
I've been hurt,
I have been beaten;
I've wandered,
And I have suffered;
Yet I have seen such beautiful things in this world
For I have been blessed with many treasures
I could have never imagined.
The Dandelion
She holds a dandelion in her palms; her hands cupped. She still sees life in what cannot grow. She shields it, vowing to protect it.
This dandelion has a backstory of continuous wounds delivered by circumstances, nature, and itself. It goes like this: the moment the dandelion started to sprout, it was deemed a weed. People dedicated their time and energy towards cutting the weed down and banishing it from their yard forgetting that it never asked to grow to begin with.
The sun and the rain continued to nourish the beaten dandelion but the world didn't stop pouncing on it's prey. It was stepped on, pulled apart, ran over again and again with the lawn mower, eaten by animals, and ripped apart by gusts of wind. The dandelion had no other reason to believe that it was worth more than this. It had lost all hope and gave up fighting. The dandelion watched the world continue to try to destroy it, and learned to stop resisting.
When it was stepped on, it knew to stay down; when it was yanked out of the ground, it tried to take it roots out with it; when the lawn mower came with it's gnashing teeth, the dandelion took a deep breath and positioned itself to be sliced up; when the animals came, the dandelion prayed that it would be fully consumed; and when the wind picked up, the dandelion jumped towards the impact hoping it would find some way out of its personal hell, but the sun and the rain gave it the nutrients it needed and the cycle continued. The bruised and scarred dandelion concluded that it was placed in the world simply to be hurt.
The days continued to pass and the years continued to increase, Suddenly, the house had new owners.
A woman rushed to the back and noticed a weeping dandelion. She scooped it up in her palms, shielding it from pain. She brought it into her warm house and showed it to her husband. They found a pot for it and its roots found comfort in their home and began to spread out. They gave it sunlight and water and the dandelion began to grow. Eventually, it was as if the broken had been repaired; it was as if the impossible had turned into a miracle that grew in the soil with the dandelion.
The dandelion learned to greet each day with a smile, how to finds enjoyment in its life, and began to thank the sun and the rain for its persistence. The flower had been saved because of the compassion of a woman and a man. Whenever the flower grew weary and the sadness was evoked, it remembered that it would continue to let its roots grow because of its blessing of the two. That was the strength of a miracle.
The Trauma Continues to Sing
Weary eyes grow stronger,
As each day passes,
Another day I have to try to forget,
About the trauma.
My mind replays the screams and the terror,
Every punch and every kick,
I eat this pain for breakfast everyday,
It's become the daily communion for a religion I stopped following years ago,
Drinking my own blood from the injuries she inflicted back then,
Consuming my body and mind,
And now I'm just sitting here after the years have passed,
Soaked in this pain that refuses to leave,
She let it manifest in my body and now it lives in me,
Her words echoing in my head,
Reminding me that I am nothing more than somebody else's punching bag,
And some days that's enough weight to knock me down,
Aching for the memories to stop bringing me down in this dismal pit,
Where the teary well of water has gone dry,
With cracked lips that can't speak the words quite clear enough,
Searching desperately for a way out of this trap,
Numbing myself from the hatred that still rattles in these bones,
Trying to convince myself that there is a place,
Where the sky might be gray but the rest of the world will still be beautiful;
Where the clouds can bring rain and I can still bring myself to my feet and dance,
To a rhythm that doesn't sing her song anymore,
Where the trauma doesn't sing over my song,
A song,
That I pray will some day be beautiful.
The Anger Always Finds Me
I'm tightroping on eggshells
With weight as light as a feather
Only to see each egg crack.
Kayaking
In a blue kayak
I drift away
The gentle waves carry me
Into a grace I am still a stranger to.
I let the paddle sway
Pulling it through the water
The sun illuminating on it's bright yet glorious reflection
Making this world so beautiful
The trees standing tall
Singing songs in the wind
And if I look forward
I can see the two people I love just ahead of me
This is serenity
I've never been more willing to move towards the uncertainty
But in this little peace of heaven
I run like a child into it.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”