POETRYSpace Between CenturiesEric Mattson
Woke,
To the past pounding
On the door
Demanding reprimand.
Reach into a pocket
Pay with the present,
(Leaves a photo)
One that can look at you
Why not you, it?
Forced to absorb that memory
With age,
Where does the pain go?
…Anger doesn’t like to
Be reminded of itself…
Casually raid the repressed
Don’t miss your golden youth
My mother says
As I expand past these walls,
Spilling into the streets
Of asphalt lullabies and
Lamp post nightlights
Guiding me to the
Comfort of twilight
On Ravenswood Way.
You can start over,
But nothings undone.
So I,
Transform deformed scenes
With colors of creation
Outlining the myth.
Transmuting me past flesh
These words that refuse death.
As I look back
A thousand years past.
Eric Mattson was born in New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers-Camden. After school Eric took up working construction to focus on poetry and music. He has been accepted in drunken moneys, carnival literary magazine and red dashboard magazines. In the two and a half years since then he has lived in 5 different states and continues to chase a dream.
spider up her thigh in the dimly lit room
held down, stared down
embers of the abyss snap around her
My father sexually abused me.
When I got married,
I hyphenated my name.
No one questioned it at the time.
But in the middle of my parents’ late divorce,
everyone wants to know about names.
Nietzsche warned us not to look
long into the abyss, or it will look long
into us.
It was finally
his home until
abruptly
his mind flashed
all the times he had entered a
boy
i was depressed,
and i wanted
to take a
walk;
you said you'd join me—
didn't mean i wanted
netflix and chill,
it happened before words came
to tell me how to feel about it
newly connected neurons torn apart
or perverted—
forever firing blanks into the microbiological air
As a child
The lessons taught
Can bring a pain never thought.
The lessons on trust
And heartache
Sear the soul.