SYDNEY JUNKINS - POEMS

Sydney Junkins is a writer from southeastern Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in the literary magazine Bridge Ink twice. She writes creative pieces (anything from poetry to rants on the workings of time) whenever her brain gets too stuffed with words to speak comprehensible sentences, which is more often than not. 

​hatch truth in the morning, slit throats by night

​submerged, emerging
encased in amber sheen no longer
all run
they’re waiting—no,
hiding
hiding from the wings of truth
that bear upon their back
lady insanity herself
to her steel-claw snares
snapping ankles
and bring unawares to their knees
born a beggar, die a beggar, she’ll croon
drawing her fingers
across their dewy brows
in the mirrors of her eyes, they will see
watch as their own reflection draws a knife
 

 

​glorious it would be, to be wind

​oh—to be the lady of the skies’ broom,
to sweep clouds and birds across the blue
to dance around [half eaten] pears lying in the street
and to twist a young girls hair
so that she swears on the existence of fairies
(much to the exasperation of her stiff-necked mother)
to cast idiotic grins on the faces of dreamers
out on solitary, never lonely, strolls
to be the forecast of weather and change
and everything in between
to watch children crawl into adult shells
whose hats beg to be whipped up and away
as their owners give chase through busy sidewalks
finally with their heads higher
than their spick-and-span dress shoes
and to know of all the secrets
whispered by desperate people from open windows on moving trains
oh—to be wind, jester and king of the air
 
 

​to the little girl who was teaching her parents
the joke about “booing bees”--

​don’t you ever shed your unabashedly gorgeous snake-skin boldness
 
your bosom friend isn’t your blood-sister?
kiss her goodbye anyway, she’s in your family
the family that you hold close in your mossy, found-this-acorn-on-a-walk-and-kept-it heart
 
when your mother tells you
“it’s high time you get rid of some things”
keep your rock collection, you’ll need it,
for when everyone tells you the world is gravel.
you will hold your head high,
show them your treasures,
and say—no, shout--
“I SEE THESE DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU”
 
 
 

​don’t tell me not to cry over it

​torrents, torrents of spilled milk conversation
bottle it in a black lace flask
to leave underneath the bed and forget about
for weeks and weeks
and then to find it
aged like the spilled milk it is
(that is to say, spoiled and repulsive)
when one word
one drop of milk
rends the bottle
spilling the milk and conversation again
why, buzzard, are you circling still over me,
a sober jackass waiting for death?