Briana McCarthy
Poetry 2024
More than half of my sketching is in written word. Drawing is a tool to tease out the visual structure, the perspective, the colors, and all the visual details of a piece, but words hold the soul of it. They help me understand what I am feeling, allowing it to be communicated more clearly in an artwork. This was once the main purpose of my poetry, to feed the creation of visual work, but as I began working more heavily with glass, there was a shift. The visual work began to feed the poetry. As a result, my writing became less tied to individual works and much more intrinsic to my practice as a whole.
Mourning Dress
Laces up the back pulled tight
Bone to bone, breath is blight
Close, tight, cinch, bite
Girdled in the wretched night
Pull near, don’t fight
Bone hand, scythe bright
Keep You Close
Swaddled in the chains of you
Cool
Biting
Heavy
Secure
Reflecting myself
What's left of you
Held
Trapped
Your shifting links pinch and cut
I will gladly
Bruise
Bleed
Welcome the sting
The weight
To keep you close
To have you always
Bedtime in Summer
Feet washed pink
Still bare
Window a breath from the sill
Night whispering between them
The last of the day's sun
Inhaled from a golden head
A kiss for the brow and each freckled cheek
From the first lips to do so
A trailing hand over crown, shoulder
Soft steps
Softer declaration
The creak of hinges
Safety and slumber and dreams
Flesh Memory
I don't cry as often now
I hope I never stop completely
Now and then I need a devastating moment of missing you
For my body to remember what you mean to me
Kronos' Lullaby
Kronos at the cradle
I swallow the children of my animal mind and wounded heart
They lie in my stomach like stone
Destined to return and destroy me
Hope
The worst gift is hope
It churns within my ribcage; a rabid pacing of its cell
Mad, but vigilant, and focused on escape
Hungry, but I shan't feed it
A lie
Pity has me sliding crumbs between the gaps
It's good at getting its teeth through the spaces to bite
I still run my fingers across the bars
Neglected, teased, and trapped
If freed, it would consume me like a starving thing
Snapping sinew and wet choking
No, don't give me hope
Give me truth and the slap of pain that follows
Better a red cheek than a ripped throat
No, don't give me the lie of hope
The Taste of Death
If you could taste, we'd taste the same metal tang:
The obol on your tongue
The blood on mine
Rest May Solve It
Rest may solve it, but I cannot
My body is confused
When I lie down, it is ready to run
When I stand, it drags and lurches
If only I could sleep standing up
My head above my shoulders
My dreams would be sky and stars and open-air
They would look down on the world and see its beauty
They would show me my own
I only sleep with my head at the height of my feet
Dirt and rocks and worms and bones
And I don't even do that anymore
Errant Spells
By writing, by speaking
Am I weaving a spell of my own unhappiness?
Tying and retying the knots I've meant to unravel?
Sinking poisoned sutures into flesh, holding myself together with deceit?
If those sutures were for my mouth, fangs entrapped, my mind would still conjure venom
Tangled thoughts constricting
Threads sliding closer
Fiber dragging against fiber
Will the friction rub me raw?
Burn me up?
Will the knots grow like tumors, crushing and clogging
And killing?
Are these my own hands at my throat?
A patient, delicate hand frees a tangle
I fear I've been too eager, too rough
The Butcher
Which is best: the slow slice or the fast slash?
It’s all violence
If I rest the knife at the top of my sternum and let you watch my layers peel apart
Is that more palatable?
Sexier?
Saner?
A crawling release of the tension that holds a body together
My spiritual entrails sliding to your feet
Me sliding to your feet, beautifully suppliant
An offering
Would you prefer it fast and dirty?
A cascade of all I am rushing to the ground
Bursting from the meeting
The viscera kissing our skin like warm rain
The both of us anointed by my ruin
If I cut myself open
Neck to navel
Crack my breast in twain
Butchered on the block before you
Maybe you won’t reach for the knife
The Hurricane
The hurricane tore through before you knew this place existed
If you’d wade through the rubble and detritus, you would find the beach
You stand at the outskirts and ask the destruction to part like the sea, but you are no Moses and worship only yourself
Walking Wound
I am that open wound you fear
That inconvenient discomfort
That ragged tear in your easy day
I'm used to bleeding, so you should get used to blood
Hack
I'm a sloppy executioner
Head dangling above the basket
Bringing a dull ax to my own neck
Never managing a clean cut
Drowned
Sometimes the memory of someone crashes around me
Sunny day drowned
My treasures washed to the gutter with other people's trash
Carefree
What is carefree?
I was born with cares
I screamed them in my first breath
Sunrise
There are times the night lasts longer than it should, so I must coax the sun to rise
Clever Girl
Have you ever cried on the overground?
Seems terrible…I’ll let you know
I think my face is telling my secrets
I have too much space for this crowd
It's a precarious ride home
Though, I am not going home
I'm trying to make it home
It's missing too many people
I’m in pieces and so are you
Pixelated on a screen
In a box on the mantle
Now I'm just playing chicken
Daring the tears to come
Daring myself to break apart
Splashing my loneliness on strangers’ shoes
I won't
I won't allow it
I won't share with strangers what I still have of you
I've gotten good at controlling tears
I'm almost a master at locking things away until they are strong enough to break out and kill me
Clever girl