Two Poems by Deborah Hunter

Deborah Hunter

Deborah J. Hunter is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based multi-disciplinary poet and spoken word artist whose work has been commissioned for publication and performance. She received a 2020 Greenwood Art Project grant for her original play, Porches, a 2018 Women of the Year Pinnacle Award, and was a 2013 Oklahoma Poet Laureate finalist.

LEGENDS

Movies I saw, TV I watched, books I read,

taught me that a prince with

your good looks and bulging bank account

would save me,

put me in a big house and a big car,

hold me in powerful, gentle arms,

drive out memories of other arms,

arms that pinned me down,

wrenched me open,

imprisoned my soul in its dark night.

There are dragons here.

Movies I saw, TV I watched, books I read,

taught me that it was my destiny

to save a woman with your beauty and raw pain.

You were my princess in distress. 

I wanted to put you in a big house and a big car,

hold you in my powerful, gentle arms,

drive away the dragons you pretended weren’t there.

I thought I could buy you safety.

I thought I could love you free.

I am lost in this house,

my sanctuary, my fortress,

but it is my prison, my dungeon

of nightmares: strange faces,

insistent hands clamp to my knees,

dilate and scrape me out.

Dragons

breathe fire, tear my skin,

push between my thighs,

inside me, rip out

the life I was supposed to have.

The me I was supposed to be

is running down my legs,

puddling at my feet …

Dragons in my dreams

and dragons are an illusion.

Are you an illusion, too?

It’s one o’clock in the morning.

I’m sitting on the edge of our bed

waiting for you to come home

because I failed you.

I was too selfish, not selfish enough,

expected too much, didn’t expect enough,

talked too much, didn’t talk enough,

couldn’t be what you needed.

I am reminded of the stone giant who,

after all that he loved was ripped from his hands,

sat alone, desolate, in utter anguish and said,

“They look like good, strong hands, don’t they?”

I’m looking down at my hands now,

hands that could not hold onto you,

feeling his despair,

feeling my human-ness

because

I cannot light

the growing darkness in your soul.

I cannot slay

the dragons in your dreams.

Post-Trauma

I am amazed at this tick-tocking

of daily life that plods on with

meandering sameness that 

resolves nothing, reveals even less.

I am amazed that I lift up and 

put down one foot after the other 

on cold hard cement, 

even when I am indoors.

I am amazed that when I look 

down at the ground 

I do not see myself lying there,

a freeze-dried relic of who I thought I was 

and not enough tears to restore me.