We’re going to be featured at Poet’s Monday on January 5th. We’re going to be the first feature of the year! See more details here. -Peri
Tag: ourpoetry
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This is a new poem called “your god is a boning knife” about my time in the Mormon Church.
the god of your dreaming world is a boning knife
made to pry black from white
good from evil, the same from the other
the wheat from the chaff
you’ve made the sacred into a weapon, a tool
and reality into delusion
the god of your dreaming world is a crowbar
made to pry denial from the self
love from fear (to you, they are one and the
same)
blood from stones, beauty from ashes
until the souls you’ve carved in the name of
perfection, divine judgment, are not souls anymore
they are vessels for your unholy scripture
and their too perfect smiles don’t look
joyful to me anymore
they look like silent screams
the god of your dreaming world is a club
you use words to bludgeon when you can
no longer pry
slow violence and promises of an unsafe world
outside of these walls to
keep followers in line
you’ve made faith into such a violent thing
I never want to touch it again for fear of holding
the same weapons you used against me
the god of your dreaming world is a noose
and I am still suspended upside down by my
left ankle when I sleep sometimes all these years
later
as the blood rushes to my head I wonder what I
did to deserve this, how I fell for this
as I scream for someone to cut me down
I got out from under the shadow of your god
just barely
I am not perfect, I don’t want your vision
you will not pry anything else from me-Peri 11/18/2025
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untitled 11/16/2025
the wind in the trees outside my window
sounds like waves
and occasionally I get a scent that takes me back
before four unhappy new years wore me down
I am less agoraphobic now
but this smell is fall’s last breath as it
collapses into winter
and I collapsed then, too
I thought I’d seen the last of me
I tried to warn you in songs that were everything short of a scream
when nothing else seemed to make sense to you
sparse like the first weekend of a midwestern
december
(just as cold as you became)
(black ice dead eyes and all)
and failing that, I vanished
into the empty western sky
but once it looked like I could be happy
once it looked like I could have it all
you chased me through the autumns, the winters
and the years as if none of what you’d done
to me before mattered
over and over and over again
I never understood it
why was I so important
and ultimately
why do you pursue a vision of me
that was never real at all-Allēna
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I pitched an idea for a spring themed multimedia show to a shop and studio here in town in March or April. They say they’ll get back to me next week.
If this goes well, I want to do it again. I think I’m going to put it together regardless, though.
-Allēna
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This was the result of a very special workshop on ekphrastic poetry today.
I am a sorceress, twice in exile –
they claim my magic is merely madness, but
those with the eyes to see know better
I am the voiceless breaker of curses, until now
bearer of grief no one knows about
I am no one’s prisoner anymore
to know myself is to know my power
to know myself is the key to my freedom
I have all that I need
there is an embarrassment of riches in my heart
and though you may not like what you see
you might be shocked by it
terrified by it
I have looked within so I can look without
I see you for all that you are now
and you hold no charm for me
I am made of night and waves and song
water and air, wrath and lightning
while you are made of nothingness
I do not need you, you need me
you will no longer have my pain
so here I go, I’ve broken my chains
and the ties that bind me
and I take my first steps into the dawn and
the red world
~”the sorceress”, after breaking the vicious circle by remedios varo, written by Allēna 11/9/2025
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I found this gem from 9/20/2022 in our Google Drive.
I am longing for longing’s sake
I’ve struggled to let my heart want
what it wants for so long that I’m going to
let whatever haunts it haunt me.
And fuck, I want so much.
there’s a man back east
mysterious and strange
fascinated by everything
I think he may have been thirteen the
first time I met Death
I want nothing less than his mind
but I want nothing more
and I think I’m fine with that.
There’s a woman in a hypothetical west
with slender hands and tapering fingers
come here? I ask her
and she walks through rooms older
than both of us combined
she walks home, despite the fear
through the years
she walks home
to me
I want afternoons and gold dust evenings
I want to let the world enchant me again
one song at a time
I want to be enthralled with what I have
and what I will have
and what I will lose
The world is not a dead place.
It is not made up of stark black and white.
I may be tired but Death has yet to find me
again
Until then, I make my way home
I will do what the man in the east did
what the woman in the west will do
And become fascinated with everything
again.-Castor
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I wrote this based on a conversation I had with a cool fellow poet after Poets’ Monday last week.
“fog kisses”
the lake visits me and gives me little fog kisses
as she’s been doing since before the house
reached out its unforgiving arms and swallowed me
they caress my skin and turn
the street lights into stage lights
every turn on the drive home is a perfectly framed
work of artI once called her my wife many years ago
when I had a different name, a different life,
practically a different face
when every nerve from
my neck to my hands screamed pain and
fatigue
I was angrier then, I think, to keep myself alive
but the rage served its purpose
that name served its purpose
as did that life and that house
but I never stopped loving that lakeI’m still here, sifting through the remainder of
what was left behind when I found her
where do I go now?
how do I leave the wrath behind when it’s seared
itself into every cell in my body?
she’s more home
than my own skin…-Allēna 10/22/2025
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“regarding an incident on october 20, 2020”
dancing off the edge of the world
tired of all the motion and the sickness
it's been five years and I'm not sure if I've gotten
better or so much fucking worse
(I feel like a walking corpse)
(a snake in your garden)
I still hate you for what you did
except
I tell myself I no longer care
I still build bridges to spite the anger and the fear
you drilled into me
I still flinch when someone knocks on the door or
a bell rings too loudly
or when someone looks at me too close
what could they possibly want to know
what could I possibly have to offer them
it couldn't be
anything genuine, I thought for the longest time
those curious eyes must be another face
I'd inevitably want to spit in
but no, five years later, I find
I simply want the luxury of
not having to see your face when I close my eyes
and never having to hide myself from you
or the world
again
-Allēna, 10/20/2025
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Eight wrote this in 2022. It’s called “salome”.
my teen years taught me nothing of
importance
except how to write clear and deep
about what hurts
I've written enough by now
to fill a small library, so
look back with me -
I prayed for an ideal in cold rooms
and I still became the only one who could
save me
you look at me at my worst and you
tell me I've healed
you look at me at my best and say
I'm not enough
you told me they only recognize
greatness when it's in a party dress
dancing, not a day older than twenty
so tell me why I got more done
half dead with godlike confidence
than I ever did the way you asked of me?
would you have given me
half your kingdom
a wild prophet's head on a silver
platter
if I'd only been nice enough?
I'm not your Salome, I'm not your
beautiful daughter,
I'm iron and blood with war in my veins
I am the wild prophet you tried to kill
call for my head all you like,
I will no longer be
a pawn in your game
11/20/2022-Allēna
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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!
My friend mk and I are doing a joint performance in December and we hope to see you there! Here’s the flyer:
I’m so excited!
-Allēna
