Sonnet of a Weeping Warrior

The Left Alone of what I didn’t choose

It comes to me each night in crying waves

Regrets, Could-Haves and What-Ifs I did lose

And Futures, once so close, I failed to save.

A slipping slowly in through the cracks of days,

Spill rapidly like rivers hour to hour.

Denial of the death of all my Mays,

And in the face of To-Be fights I cower.

I crawl into a clock to stop its tick.

I dig myself a hole in which to hide.

I walk into the ocean, tied to brick.

But still I float due to my bloated mind.

How I do long to bury what I tow.

Though no safe place my life can rest its woe.

The Dark, It Stalks Relentlessly

The hunt of me by Darkness still proceeds.

It wakes me up some nights as It grows near.

Though other times It slips into my dreams,

And leaves me in the morning soaked in tears.

Collisions we have had since dawn of time,

Formed nestled side by side in Womb, repose.

At birth, the Darkness tore holes in my mind.

It stalks me by the whistle when wind blows.

My armor is a calloused coat of scars.

And sword, my tongue, with years of sharpened edge.

A bag of heavy stories mans my guard.

And catches what drips from my broken head.

A life afraid is hardly one at all.

Our next encounter, one of us will fall.

Daydreamer

The photos of my past life seem so far.

Not me, but someone else who shares my face.

The young girl in the photos hurts my heart,

For she, and all else in the frame, will change.

The images in plastic trapped in time

Like dried out insects morbidly on show

Uncomplicated silent and benign

A photo never shows what lurks below.

I see instead a painting of a lake.

An armored oak tree overhangs its boughs.

I see the girl beneath it, half awake.

Untouched, pristine, preserved by art’s still vow.

My future like the girl, I will create.

The truth though marked on film is not my fate.

I have included three Shakespearean sonnets to showcase variety in my sonnet collection. I like the view the sonnet like an oil painting and therefore focus heavily on vivid and concrete language. My complete collection of sonnets is much like walking through an art gallery of said paintings, each showing an experience, triumph, story or struggle contained in the "frame" of the traditional poem structure.

Bio: Amanda Scott is a 22-year old, queer artist from the rural town of Rapid City, Manitoba, Canada. She began creative writing as a hobby while pursuing her Bachelor of Music at Brandon University and currently writes primarily poetry and short fiction. Amanda currently resides in Victoria, BC where she is continuing her education to become a music therapist.

Charred butts of cigarettes are brushed into a dirty pile under the edges of the lone bench. Its cold metal ceases to soften nor warm under body weight. Loosely-bound fibreglass sheets create a doorless shelter. Transparent, aquarium-like with a maximum capacity of one. A sign stands dripping and lanky like a large lollipop. Stop 114c. The schedule lazily framed below, long faded and peeled, no help to the one who failed to remember the routes. The traffic light on the nearby corner provides rhythmic, technicolor filters to the unsaturated evening. Long green, brief yellow, short red.

Unnamed bodies linger around the swaying shelter, face down in a coat collar or digging through a wallet. Warm breaths appear like empty speech bubbles. Drops run wearily down the green-filtered panels. The skew of moisture and motion like a film on fast forward. Red traffic lights periodically pause the colors, revealing them to be vehicles. All of which contain unfamiliar faces, but one, who fails to wave before it is urged on by a green hue.

Charred butts sail like boats on a calm lake in a collection of rain water below the bench. The corpse of a beetle leads the fleet. The small pond tinted red.

Then a stiffening of muscles. A contagious energy falls among the visitors of 114c like dominos. Grinding bellows of a large machine alert the grand arrival. Choreographed faces resurface from their jacket burrows to squint uniformly through green mist at the scrolling number above the oncoming windsheild. The red ox groans to a halt, accordian doors open for only a warm burst of air to disembark and stir the beetle fleet. Release of a pressurized air then welcomes entrance onto the lowered step of the vehicle. An awkward, hesitant order is formed between silent, eager eyes before the filing onto the bus. Rain-soaked boots disappear two by two through the threshold of the lit staircase. The reddish eyes of the driver stall a moment before the level is pulled to seal the bus.

And in red light it waits. Temptingly. Mockingly. Sickeningly. With its passengers’ red eyes turned towards you in your cigarette-filled aquarium. Then at last green, like a vacuum pulls the bus onwards until the unblinking tail lights finally turn as well.

The cancer won.

.

.

.

.

.

(A tribute to a soul I miss).

Red hands blot sink’s jaw.

Gazing over frosted pane. My axe,

snow queitly cries upon.

.

.

.

(This is a writing exercise to use every letter of the alphabet in ony 15 words. I encourage you to try it out. Thank you to @EstherFLowers1 for the original concept.)

Sun through a crack in the curtains stings my eyes.

Dried mascara is like tar I struggle to blink them awake.

I am in a bed under white sheets, pillows cradle my sore head.

Arms stretched to the length of the bed, toes to the far corners.

Martini glasses line the dresser, some empty and some not quite.

Sun shines through the alcohol like its a small ocean, casting small rainbows.

My mouth is glued shut with thirst.

Vocal chords sore from evident overuse that I can’t recall.

The pillow next to me smeared the same color as the lipstick I wore last night.

Sheets that share a likeness in their softness envelop my body.

My hair is damp and tangled beneath my head that is too heavy to lift.

The lingering drowsiness blurs the room into a watercolor painting.

Muffled conversations through a door in words I recognize but cannot comprehend.

The blankets that rest on my bare skin feel like needles to my sesitive flesh.

Spanish words my ears strain to hear as I shift under my covers.

The posts of my pearl earrings digging into the skin behind my ears.

The door handle turns with hushed voices.

A sudden recollection of the night prior halts my breath.

The man at the bar who so kindly bought me a drink.

My house, only blocks away, I refused escort to.

Wet blood on my face and in my hair after being hit.

City lights fading through a dark car window, the word Mexico.

Locked doors and ropes on my limbs, hands everywhere.

My fake ID barely visible on the far side of the room from where I lay.