self imposed limits

katie hawthorne

FIRST DOPPELGANGSTER BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 2009 Copyright 2009 by Katie Hawthorne Cover image copyright 2004 by Mark Noke. Used with permission. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Doppelganger Books.

TABLE OF CONTENTS choked.1 drivers ed..4 treason...5 sticky notes.7 schizophreniform..8 truth...9 acknowledgements..10 about the author11

Choked. She wanted to protect me from all dangers, accusing the filth and the germs that lurked in the air and the sun and the skies and the smiles of all of the people I knew. All along, I was encouraged to believe that the world was an evil place, that it was out to get me, like the vampire that lurked under my bed. I was told that people were like

peanuts, ready to choke me if I did not stay safely stowed under her protection. She ordered my teachers to burn shame into the class door and my cheeks: No peanuts allowed past this point! Mom prepared me for battle as thoroughly as Artemis with the legendary dagger Epipen and aegis Sanitizer. Clothes transformed into anacondas encircling my body, so that to her, I was safe because all I could do was nod. Safe is four walls without sunlight. Mom kept me safe as long as she could. A peanut crawled into my throat: setting every defense present in my body on attack--against me. But Mom couldnt always be there. I swelled and I gasped and I whimpered, I cried for anyone and anything at the top of my choked lungs. I plunged the dagger into my thigh. The serpents encircling me slithered away, relinquishing their hold upon my limbs, and my lungs cleared like clouds after a storm. I breathed. The vampire surrendered to sun, And the words burned to the door melted away, with them, the fire from my cheeks. I couldnt be her version of safe forever. Ill never be safe; no one is. But I was better than that: I smiled. I was freed.

Treason Words have betrayed you. Those twenty six gossamer symbols you worshipped

fell apart: victims of their nature; they could not hold together to mold the message you needed to convey. Words have betrayed you. Their intensity lured you into believing that seals of wax gluing feathered nibs to units of meaning could enable you to defy gravitys limitations, and soar into the sky into a reality you create. Words have betrayed you. That dictionary who promised to contain the horizons in its pages fell short, and you with it: reduced to depending on legends told in ink and graphite of places you cannot reach. You have betrayed words. Left them crying in the nest, abandoned, starving for emotion to feed theiryourvicarious flight. You stopped writing. Now, neither of you can fly.

Drivers Ed Speed and distance cannot muffle truth: objects in mirror are much closer than they appear.

Sticky Notes I left a sticky note on your door. You were out, I saw no reason to call. It's all I had to say. Nothing more can be done to encourage kinship between us. Speak softly. Talk small. It's all we say anymore. I found the bottles squirreled away in your drawer. I didn't say anything. I wrote it all

on a sticky note. On your door there's a graveyard of them: decor displaying truth I don't want to recall: that they're all I can say anymore. Be careful. There's glass on the floor. It's from the cup you threw. Im okay. It hit the wall. I left the sticky note on your door. It makes me that much easier to ignore-my existence confined to yellow squares of scrawl. I left a sticky note on your door. Its all we have to say anymore.

schizophreniform think: zigzag nebula meandering stream world: beautiful minus harpys scream limbs: rebel desert shaky team sight: wistful trapped in waking dream intelligence: sick concluding worshipped regime translation: 404 meaning not todays theme

Truth Do or do not. There is no try Jedi Master Yoda Such an easy thing to claim until your wings melt in the sky.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This publication would not have been possible without the endless and unrelenting editing marks and the exercises provided by Professor Ross White. Thank you for the candid comments that bled over all of my poems. Heres to the acceptance that the poems in this volume will never be complete. Cheers! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Katie Hawthorne, aka doppelgangster (for reasons undiscussed in this volume), is currently a first year undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While she does not foresee a successful poetry career ahead of her (especially not one that follows strict conventions of meter), she does intend to continue writing poetry.