Claudia Osei-Asante

Alone in White

When I’m surrounded by white noise,
when my brain drips empty
and my bruises stain the skin
that covers my vacancy,
I feel the most alone

I’m in a constant trance of walls and eyes.
No marrow for my bones. A hollowness to my being.
No arrow to pierce through cerebral catacombs.

Sitting under an absence of starlight,
cicadas chirp their song of the great unknown.
The glow of each still breathing
soul fades to shadow,
and still we look on.

---

Sestina Cut Short: A Tainted Girl’s Plea

I too was once peeled to my bones
by those who I always forgave.
Scraped to the brain nerves down
in the depths of cerebral brightness.
I was a road, cracked and broken,
with leaves laced around its street signs.

To find the immoral, there are many signs:
An eternal quivering of tainted bones.
A solid heart that palpitates until broken,
and lungs that gulp and gasp for forgiveness.
You will not find luster brighter
than the flicker felt from going down.

They will pretend not to stoop down
to the level of those who sign
their innocence in blood. Bright
ones will know better than to bone
where they eat, but will ask to be forgiven
when hymens aren’t the only things broken.

I refuse to be porcelain that’s easily broken.
Why should I want to be down
to earth when I feel so celestial? I forgive
the stars for not knowing that fire is a sign
of ignition, and they are torching the bones
of humans, when they shine too bright.

I am a moon with luminosity so bright
the woods would bow as if broken.
I am an archaeologist of my own bones.
I’m on a roller coaster that only goes down.
I’m a yellow caution: wet floor sign
without the floor, and I don’t need forgiveness.