Hacksaw & Cypher King Silence by Sara Crane
Hacksaw
Shame is a hack saw I took to my wings/ cutting the flight from my back/ matted like massacred birds/ feathers sprawl on lawns/ sun glints their blood.
shame is a straight back I learnt on his lounge/ body of a broken guitar upright/ sits in the corner of his room/ posture good, legs tight and neat/ a picture of me hangs unframed/ everything about me is unframed/ loose on a wall, falling into shape like a lick of paint.
shame is a wire I took to my crooked teeth/ plucked early and straightened young/ broke bad like a kicking horse bucking against the wild world/ buckling like knees/ buckled like a woman’s will/ you’ll learn to behave to survive.
shame is eyes straight ahead/ no stray rotations/ counsellors and courts think talking about it is good/ they want the gritty story/ act like they want to know where you came from/ what brought you here/ always a need to justify your grief/ disordered nature/ tv screen for big eyes/ waiting for the high impact sex scene/ they want the shame porn/ story porn
they want the narrative in lines, facts, figures/ so they can evaluate if your hurt is worthy enough.
shame is a hacksaw whose handle was made for my hand/ moulded to fit like the soles of well-worn boots/ hug my feet like no one else’s/ a feather stuck back together/ glue I steal from someone else’s left-over love / mached, piled like kid’s craft/ immature like
no art to it/ like making an art out of healing as a prayer does God.
even if the feathers re-build into wings/ clipped so long/ she forgot she was even bird/ some of us carry the whisper of our ancestors so old and long you can still hear the wailing of ghosts in our blood/ some of us carry the current of our ancestors so old and long you can hear the ocean they jumped onto land from/ when I am gone/ they read my loose words flapping on pages/ I hope my descendants hear the beating of wings in their blood and that every person born from whatever it is I am/ thinks grounded is archaic/ instead flies.
Cypher King Silence
There he was on King street
basketball shorts, singlet
curly hair cornrowed
buses blur Sydney style
stomp heavy loudness
gulping you up
never said he loved you
held you like he did
made you laugh
those jokes just for you.
When you asked, you
gutted that freestyler
cypher king gone Silent
couldn’t say he loved you
couldn’t say he didn’t
bus seats, glass cold
head hard, tilted towards, cityscape
his hand finding yours
he has that face
that holds secrets
you hold him.
Never said he loved you
there he was at every show
you only female rapper on the bill
awake til 3am just to get paid
sit keep company wait.
Grey sun, greyer cement
cash flaps flimsy in pockets
sliding into The Silence
last bit to walk home
heads down hoods up.
Never said he didn’t cos
you’ll always be that girl
that scandal
that one they call slut
that moment in his life
that brought him to his knees
so he knew the calibre of his heart
and its smallness
some people are so caught up in scenes
they forget the people in them.
Doors click, dogs sniff
bed is a hard-working stranger
blinds down, roll in, you’ll
sleep in your clothes you’re that tired
cypher king’s Silence hangs like
smoke in the room killing you
when he’ll tug arm
ask ‘wanna fuck’
so tired can barely
give him an answer
if you don’t in the morning he’ll say
you never said you didn’t.
Find more from Sara on Instagram and pick up a copy of her book from Girls on Key
