Poetry By E. Elizabeth Bailey

r. nial bradshaw CC




Settling 


Ever since my mother died I carry my body like her casket, 
like I’m wearing a sign that says “something dead lives here.”
And she does.

Grief is a possessive lover,
curling his fingertips into flesh
Snaking his arms, his firm embrace   
a hidden chokehold.

Two weeks before my mother died, I cocooned in her bed, 
the floorboards in the kitchen creak as she
Sways to The Goo Goo Dolls.
I don’t think there’s ever a way to prepare the people you love for your leaving.
There is no graceful exit.
Sometimes it’s easier just to open that door and 
throw yourself into the Nothing.

My bones are settling like the floors of her house,
here, where she's still swaying.

​



I Cover Callous with Bruise   


Some things, my grandfather tells me, 
are between You and God.
I wonder how many secrets he’s left at the altar.

We don’t talk about the years I spent away from home
or how I got there.
It’s an unspoken understanding
that we share;
Let dead dogs lie. 
Even if you have the photographs to prove it; or the road rash. 

There are things I don’t tell them anymore.
After enough screaming wolf, eventually
you just kill that motherfucker.
I don’t know when my metamorphosis happened;
when I shifted from daughter to megaphone.

I drape a wolf’s skin over my child head,
spend years licking my own wounds;
Maybe I am more survival 
than person.



​

In a Past Life


my teeth grind so hard in my sleep I wake up with craters in my gums, fight nightmares off so hard I have scars on my palm shape like the curve of my nails but I swear
they are not from me.

The fist sized dent in the washer? Not me.
The garbage bag of sweaters not suitable for donation due to blood stains, shoebox of empty pill bottles, coin purse chock full of Polaroids of people in varying states of inebriation? Not mine.
The busted lip, the rosey pink scar running diagonally down the length of my left arm? An accident.
Those patches of road rash that litter my body like distant countries on a map of bad choices were not my fault;

It has been three years since I launched myself from the door of my moving Honda and I still feel pebbles in my knees sometimes.
I am not crazy, that was just a Thursday.

These days I take my medication,
I pay my rent, do my dishes,
my dog sleeps soundly by my feet.
I have almost forgotten the words to Elizabeth On The Bathroom Floor,
Haven’t written a suicide note in over a year. 

This morning I cried on the highway,
pulled off onto a dirt road and 
screamed until I saw somebody drive by 
then took a nap in my backseat.


​

E. Elizabeth Bailey is a 22 year old first generation college student from rural Alabama. She spends her time earning her degree in psychology while pursuing her career as a creative writer, performing her spoken word poetry and touching the souls of her listeners. Her writing centers around subjects such as addiction, mental health, and grief. She is the author of one published poetry collection, Where the Bullet Went. 

“the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

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