Three Poems by Rhea Melina

Rhea Melina

Rhea Melina is a multi-ethnic poet who lives in Seattle. She has been writing and putting out poetry since the early 2000’s.  Her chapbooks include "Fireant" (SSO Press, 2005), "These are not secrets" (XYZ Animal Stars, 2009), “a place to put things" (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and "Not My Wasteland" (Bone Machine, 2024). Her poems have been published in Fiilthy Glo Zine, Hare's Paw Literary Journal, Papers Pub, and Rising Phoenix Review, among others. Found Confetti is her first full-length collection of poetry and is available from Carbonation Press, November, 2024. 

I am that neighbor

I am that neighbor

with the dandelion tattoo

who doesn’t own a weed eater 

who’s motion lights don’t turn on 

I am that neighbor who leaves 

water out for the dogs 

but doesn’t water the lawn 

and lets the red dock go to seed 

every year, you’re welcome 

but if they take away your right to choose

I will be the friend you call upon for the tea

that makes your uterus contract 

and your clocks turn back

to a time when you respected my wisdom 

and you could admit you liked morning glory too

god forbid you ever need me

the condos out back, behind my shed 

have a view of my clothesline I leave 

full for days at a time, no need

to bring in what is content in the yard 

the sheets, the dog, the kids, myself

I’m practically a weed on this side of town,

what with wild hair everywhere and a mountain of shoes at my doorstep 

I don’t have an SUV but I can drive in the snow

and I know a shovel has multiple uses 

Professionals dislike how their children smile at me and I wonder 

why they were taught to fear the witches and not

the people who burned them alive 

Harm Reduction

1. I try to take my good mascara everywhere 

with me and that’s why I couldn’t find it this morning  

probably in a pocket somewhere 

There’s no time to cry and release brings no relief

Some say it’s part of the process

but that makes it no less grueling 

and what if the buck stops here?

What if the grief doesn’t end?

My dad died 

and I keep accidentally breaking

his things, or allowing children to play with them

and wear them out

and every time I have to throw something away

I feel guilty for killing

another part of him.

My lover died — I think I remember how they smelled

but I will never know that scent for sure again 

and I’m haunted by the fragments of it

that my mind attempts to piece together.

I throw up when I put on the sweater 

from the old drawer, like I’m stuck 

in a nightmare, being forced

to swallow when I was already choking

My abuser died but sometimes it feels 

like he’s watching me from behind 

the stairs and holding my throat 

in his hand with an arm 

too long to remember.

My best friend died 

and the blood wouldn’t wash 

out of the carseat no matter how many shampoos 

I tried. I lied about the stains when I sold it

though it wasn’t my fault; I just felt like no one

else needed to know it, that it was there

in the backseat where he bled out 

even though it was in the nearby woods

where he was shot in the back

by the police, running, ketamine in 

my hand, his hand folded over mine

(Don’t ask me if it was worth it

I know it wasn't) —

May no one else ever have to know

How hard your friend squeezes the bones 

of your fingers together as a bullet tears

through their kidney and how harder still

your hand can be gripped when another 

pierces their spine

I have concluded, there is no end

to the grief 

My cousin took a fenty and 

we never saw him again, 

his baby was 6 months old

so I don’t take those anymore

I take different pills now

My kid asks me why

and I tell her because my doctor suggests it

But it's also so I don’t sink to the bottom

of this ocean, I have to keep going

for her, for what’s left of our family  

I can’t let the grief drown me

I have to stay afloat

and so I doggie paddle and laugh

out of breath the whole time

but continuing 

She says she knows the ghost

of our old dog is still on the property

keeping her safe and enjoying the smell

of our cooking and I believe her

Sometimes the only consolidation 

is knowing they aren’t really gone

The dead are still right here with me

for better or worse

I breathe them in 

They hold me close

in a way only ghosts 

do, it’s like longing for something

after having just devoured it

(We lived that and we will forever.)

2.  Some people are haunted 

by the dead. Regrets take 

the form of chills. Dishes fall

on their own accord. 

Some people never seem to find 

what they’re looking for. Their whole 

lives get caught in the corner, reaching 

out to grasp strangers and only grazing 

their perceptions, scarring the space

between interactions until the line 

between the haunted and the haunt blur.

It’s the worst when fear transforms dust to cold vapor 

in some partition of the self one would rather 

not tend to— 

I am not haunted by the dead

I am traumatized by having outlived them

And I am wonderfully haunted by the living

— Lovers I may never touch, again

Friends I can’t make enough time for

Friends I miss dearly

And animals who could use a rescue—

My unhoused nephew 

cradles his crackpipe 

in his two hands like a bird’s nest

hesitates to let go of it with one hand 

in order to accept my gift of a burrito 

and I don’t blame him

cause I remember when he was 3 and I was 13 

and we had to scrub the brain matter off of the wall 

from Mr Byun’s suicide 

and he is still that 3 year old trapped inside 

asking why so much blood is wet and so much dried 

while Halmoeni  wails in the next room and periodically slams the Crown Royal bottle onto the oak table top 

—Dinners were never the same. 

The living call to me 

They are all pulling at me

with direct eye contact, pulling 

my heart into a mess of thread

on a cold, hard floor and I’ve grown 

defenseless in my wiser years

I know there is no fighting off

the spirits of the living.

and when I meet you

and immediately love you 

I will do absolutely anything

and everything to protect you.

To My Bleeding Sisters

Girl, I hate to break it to you 

but you’re not going to find the perfect leave-in 

conditioner, curl cream or gel

There is no magic wand that can snatch your face

There is no powdered tea that erases the fact

that you have a stomach

There is no serum to hide the violence in your blood

or the trauma that you have inherited and endured

There will be no AI that makes your knees weak

like only a callused hand can 

and unfortunately every month 

you are bound to be in pain

Your crown is one that cannot be tamed

Your face has greeted a new world every morning

for 15,000 days, after 15,000  apocalyptic nights

each in which it was a unique miracle that you survived

Your face glows the morning after every fucking time 

Your womb is the earth’s one moon and every sea

Your womb does not have “cramps” 

Your womb has earthquakes

Your womb has volcanoes

Your womb has hurricanes

Your womb has flash floods

landslides, typhoons, tsunamis 

inside itself secretly for days at a time

and you keep going to work

anyway, girl—

Your love is a forest fire

and you get paid pennies to sparkle

in the hand of a christian child 

who lives in a home dusted in fire protectant

on stolen land destined to be swallowed by the fury

of your daughter, one day

Just you wait

All of your prophecies will come true

Your gut was right every time

Their guns blazing and 

smut depiction of you

was a power play when they started to feel

the power you hold

It's time for them and all of their ancestors

to put the guns down

And the time has come

for you to take your throne

and show them the only rightful way 

that humans ought to bleed