Even the Smallest Bird Casts a Shadow: Poems

By Valerie Marie Leslie

Valerie Marie Leslie has unlocked the vault to her scantly illuminated adolescent mind, self-sabotaging attitude, and surrendered adulthood through her coherently random own words; poems that could be construed as diary entries, lyrics to songs, and unfinished business. Though this collection of vulnerable yet guarded poetry enters a cave of fru

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valerie Marie Leslie
• Release date: Jul 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996514415

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Even the Smallest Bird Casts a Shadow

– POEMS –

by

Valerie Marie Leslie

Copyright ©2015

Even the Smallest Bird Casts a Shadow

– Poems –

Copyright © 2015, Valerie Marie Leslie

ISBN: 978-0-9965144-0-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-9965144-1-5 (ebook)

All rights reserved.

Editor: A Step Up Editing

Cover image: TEA - Fotolia

Book design and prepress / ebook services: Kathleen Weisel, Bellingham, WA (weiselcreative.com)

Author’s Notes

Why the hell would I publish poems I wrote when I was fourteen? Narcissism? Perhaps. Are they even poems or just emotional ideas purged into my first blank book? The blank book—a navy blue vinyl casing pressed to look like wood with a metallic silver border about a quarter inch from the edge. Inside this border is a metallic silver unicorn centered in a perfectly thin circle made of the same silver, and it’s horn piercing through the finely lined ring. Considering the era whence this book emerged, when unicorns were airbrushed into bubblegum hues against Slurpee colored cloudy backgrounds, it’s quite tasteful. Unfortunately, though, time and I have been abusive to it. The outer spine is tearing away and inside chunks of pages are torn away. And, having been so insecure about everything I did, I wrote all the bloody poems in damn pencil; the writing is only getting paler.

I want to preserve them, of course, as well as other poems on loose pieces of paper piled up in drawers and boxes. I’ve lost or thrown away too many, so I’ve taken the time to gather everything I have and put them in the sequential order that I can best recall them being in: the navy blue silver unicorn blank book, notebooks, loose papers, and two more full blank books.

Each chapter begins with a poem from the age of fourteen or fifteen, then chronologically as I grew older to about my mid-thirties. The first chapter begins with the very first poem I ever wrote, thus its appropriate position. The rest of the chapters follow in an arrangement that felt like the right order to put them in.

The poems that didn’t make the cut either simply didn’t fit in any chapter, didn’t flow with the book as a whole, or registered way too high on the cringe meter. There are still plenty of poems in this collection that make me wince, or even laugh with embarrassment, but I wanted to keep it real. The only tampering I felt necessary was correcting some of the punctuation and grammar, and minor adjustments to some nonsensical syntax. I normally write poetry for my eyes only, but now I’m inviting others to read or hear them. Therefore, I was willing to gently aid the poems in readability without losing their dysfunctional integrity.

This project, I confess, brought me great comfort during a very difficult time in my life. Maybe that’s the real reason for doing it. As I bestowed hollow atonements, it gave me something to focus on and creative to complete. Combing through this written history, I realize all the while how much this girl, young woman, and summiting woman wanted to be heard. Sometimes desperately imploring to be heard. I can present a platform for her, now.

I think I acquired the unicorn blank book as a Christmas present. I don’t remember from whom, and it took me about a year after receiving it to even write in it. I wrote my thoughts in poem form in case someone would read them. I was hoping my symbolic words would derail the invader from understanding what I was really saying. Who knew that this personal nighttime ritual would turn into a life long love of poetic, creative, and even lyric writing? It’s time to give these thoughts and expressions from the past a home. Why go public with it? I guess, why not? At the very least, I don’t have it in me to keep them hidden, anymore.

CHANGE

Behind Eyes

The sky is so blue with eyes closed

Birds sing to me and the flowers grow

Grass is dark green and so are the trees

With my eyes closed only beauty can show

That’s how I lived for awhile ‘till

Time forced me through the door too soon

With a ladder to climb

My eyes are now open looking at life

Cloudy skies, birds are now bats

Brown, dry grass and bare trees

Everything ugly, scary, and embarrassing

Eyes opened now? It’s too early for me

I want them closed just a little longer

Before my real age comes by

The age where I can’t help but open them

At this time? At this age? It’s too late to fly

Change is Unchanged

As I look around me

Through the lamp-lit dark

I notice things have changed

In my life there is a spark

Maybe it’s ‘cause of him

He’s the newest thing to me

Everything else is here

Just how it should be

Nothing’s really different

Just more has been added

I can’t bluntly point it out

Things aren’t clear, but ratted

I’ve regressed back to start

Because it’s been so long

Since I’ve had someone

For feelings to be strong

I’m back to where I began

Thats why things are new

I hope I don’t do what I did

Before this phase is through

Crazed

I realize I’m getting crazed

Changes are coming on strong

I’m back to where I belong

But it’s so sad, so foggy

The sun hasn’t reached me yet

But there’s a light

In any minute it can dim, or

Vice versa

It’s great to be back

But things are so damn sad

They may smile at me

But I know deep inside them

They are burning

I’ve been there, and I’ll be there

Many times more all through my life

They can’t hide

I know them too well

This whole thing came so fast

Because it hit in one day

But one look and boom!

I’m here again

Losing touch

And smiles

Originally a Song

Too many questions that are being asked

Too many answers that aren’t being told

Too many places now left in the past

Too many reasons that the heart won’t hold

Every minute another mile away

When the distance is night and day

Try to reach for a small delay

Showing signs with daydreaming

Placing faces unknown where

Familiars used to be

Maybe this is the best thing left to do

Maybe all the pleasures will fade away

Maybe growth comes to things that never grew

Maybe guilt will raise the price to pay

Every minute another mile away

When the distance is night and day

Try to reach for a small delay

Showing signs with daydreaming

Placing faces unknown where

People used to be

The Crazy One

I’m called the crazy one

You say I’m crazy

Well look around I’m not the one

who’s doing crazy things

I’m only leaving the battle

I’m only leaving

to somewhere safe to cry

and setting my fear free

Everything is changed

Everybody’s changed

I’m making changes of my own

just not your way

Oh how I fear your ground

doing anything to fit in

But I‘m too low, I’m too insane

to win the lonely war you’ve made

My only problems are yours

Without them I’d be okay

I used to love this sky

and kiss this land

until the water started running out

Insane is what you call me

to leave my home away from home

I’m only ridding my fear, not my heart

That’s what it seems like now

Goodbye 1990

Change is all to explain you

Change from white to black

from near to far, split apart

Not only physical change

but brain switch

You remember clearly

everything in order

Drop a glass of liquid on

the floor, everywhere

Puzzle pieces not put together

A long year

It’s so hard to forgive a year

that had faults so high

You’ve changed an entire

world into an aurora

Your clouds were too thick

Your sun was too hot

Now, the sky is too high

Rearrange

You never know what’s up ahead

when what’s behind is cold and dead

You find a world that’s in the new

It is bright at first, but then turns blue

You thought you found the doorway out

Step right through without a doubt

Then you look around and notice fast

the room is symmetrical to your past

Is it always going to be the same?

You ask yourself and take the blame

You finally realize you’re the one

who makes your life repeat its run

So unhappy the way it was,

what it did and what it does

You must be the one to change

or your life will never rearrange

This World

There is this world

that was knocked out of orbit

away from its sun

Drifting in the merciless

universe, unimaginable cold

frozen solid for years

There is a pull now

from a different sun,

a distant star

This world

slowly thaws, slowly greens

Closer and closer

Hopefully, it’s coming home

My Recipe

Sit back and relax, my dear

I will make the tea

You don’t know the recipe,

nor I very well, but it’s mine

You don’t have to fluff the pillow

only my hands must learn

Yes, it is my bed

and you are always welcome

You cannot pick

the right size for me

only I am the one

to read the measurements

My soup that I must perfect

Just be your beautiful self

You do not spoil the pot

I still haven’t made it right

Right Now

What are you waiting for?

Another life? Another war?

You can feel it right here

The power, the fear

Cut off every finger nail

A deep inhale, a slow exhale

The phone call has been made

There is no ace of spade

You will have that fantastic land

And it will live and not be damned

Though many times you improvise

You still can grasp the new unwise

(Untitled)

So this is what it’s all been about

Funny how somethings don’t change

Is it safe to claim myself now?

For me I need a change

It’s always me who’s willing to change

all possibilities

I volunteer to not be me

Love me for me not what you want me to be

But you’re never willing

to meet me half way

I give up on you

as you gave up on me

I don’t feel relieved

but the sky seems a paler shade

I believe, I believe I understand now

Here is my letter to you

to explain what I have been through

And only now I see

oh, and how so ugly

But I think I am almost at peace

I think I understand now

where I come from

and what I have been about

I ain’t so bad, I ain’t so bad

I almost took my life to make it mine

I will never be your life

He may give up on me,

but God didn’t give up on me

I gave up

I want my own opinions,

ask the right questions

It’s not about what I do

It isn’t about what I am doing

I don’t want to be angry, angry with you

Not anymore

I know my soul is here for yours

The Water Bearer

Oh yes, I am the water bearer

It is in my stars

I have taken that job

to its fullest potential

But I now put the buckets down

I do not retire my post

only put the buckets down

I want to hold the world up

only in the palms of my hands

I am a giant star system

and the world fits in my hands

like beautiful crystal water

I will be the water carrier

I throw it over my shoulder

My muscles have grown large

The buckets are heavy

but the world is light

as water in my hands

A woman puts the buckets down

The water is the universe

in the palms of her hands

A Better Life

And so it isn’t over

and our suffering isn’t finished

Has it always been this way?

Maybe

So I see a map of me

and none of you are there

because you don’t want to

go with me

You don’t want to come with me

to a better life,

for a better life, to have a better life

You would rather not watch me

Not anymore

I do not measure success with money

It’s such a shame that you do

I feel removed and disdained

I don’t know what my life

has been about sometimes

I don’t know what was