blackmail press 31  Marginalization
Emma Currie
New Zealand

Marginalization - Pauline Canlas Wu
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Emma Currie I am a poet from Christchurch I have been writing for 17 years and have also studied journalism and animal science. Currently I'm finishing year two at Hagley Writers Institute. I have been published in The Listener, The Press, The International Literary Quarterly, NZ poetry Collection and other journals here and overseas.


Depression is

Depression is a naked woman in public, three duvets over a lifeless body, a drawer full of odd socks, a head on collision, the purpose of a car with no petrol.
Depression scratches, bites, screams, kicks, yells, but no one is close enough to me to hear it.
Depression; I wear it like a dress, I walk it like a dog, we eat lunch, watch Dr Phil in our pyjamas and complain of boredom. I sleep with it, I bathe with it, I write with it.




The Haunting

It’s about the locked door
It’s about the sound of a slipped belt
Trauma like brain damage
It’s about shrunken corners that don’t shelter
It’s about hearing pants drop to the floor
Wishing ears to deafen
It’s about this being a game to him
It’s about his hands locked on her arms
Repetition she knows what’s coming, coming
It’s about the floor pressing into her spine
It’s about blocking out the pain
The bleeding, the hot wet tongue
It’s about the shame, the promises, the secrecy
It’s about focusing on the same spot on the ceiling
And wishing to die
It’s about no one seeing, hearing
It’s about belief and no one believing
Don’t keep your eyes closed around children.





Ghazal of diagnosis

I want the lies to stop boiling over
And the angry voices to simmer
I want the lull of a quiet mind
And my heart to be super-glued piece by piece
I’m neither the sane nor the insane
You were just a diagnosis
I was vacant.