WELCOMETOMYWORLD

L.A. Knott

1

Table of contents

To All the Wallflowers 2 For My Tristan 3

Mostly void Partially Stars and Snow in the Desert 4 Killing Time 5

The Death of Romance 6 After life 7

What’s This? 8 Servitude 9

Loot 10 Awake 11

Average Day 12 My World 13

Empty Soul 14 You Say I’m a Demon 15

Noah 16 Screw you 17

Tears under the Water 18 Haiku to my roommate 19

Dreams 20 Superglue 21

Beyond Knowing 22 Credits 23

Author’s note (reflection essay) 24

2

To All the Wallflowers

Life is a tunnel.

Born into it, we don’t remember the beginning.

Just the beauty of life,

Wind rushing through our hair.

Life is a tunnel.

Dying is the journey, we won’t remember the end.

Just the beauty of having lived,

We are infinite.

3

For My Tristan

Dear lover,

We broke the frame.

Our hearts hover,

We fall like rain.

You are mystery,

I’m an open book.

We’ll make history.

Take another look

At the people we’ve become

The way our lives changed.

For better and for worse

Let’s always stay the same.

4

Mostly void Partially Stars and Snow in the Desert

Winter falls on the desert

Ever hot and sweltering days

Lunar nights most beautiful

Come together under the void

Overhead, stars falling

Moon watching as we drop

Earth, sand, caked in our hair

Tonight we fell in love as the stars hit

Our cheeks, freezing our skin and blood

Never has it snowed before

I can’t shake the feeing, I’m dreaming

Grey eyes meet mine, assure me that we’re living

Heat in our bodies dissipating

Tonight feels like the end of the world

Void rushing down to meet us

Already, we are buried

Lights passing over head

5

Everyone unsleeping

Killing Time

Light fades from the sky

We’re killing time together

Radiating life

6

The Death of Romance

He killed me in my sleep,

How dare he fucking weep!

As I lay there bruised and broken

He cannot help but take a token

Of the life that he had stolen,

As he cuts away a lock of blood soaked hair,

We used to be the perfect pair…

He looks in to my vacant eyes and

Grants me

One last

Kiss

Goodbye.

7

After life

Murdered in his bed

His lover dead

Beside him

Weeps the killer,

A jealous girl.

A lonely boy

Longs to join his lover in the afterlife.

8

What’s This?

It is the flavor of Christmas time,

It sends a chill through the tongue as well as the heat of spice.

As it melts there, slow, like the minds of the elderly recounting holiday memories.

To children who are experiencing their first Christmases.

The angelic circle of red and white stains the soul

With joy as,

Cavities, form on its surface.

9

Servitude

His eyes shone with uncommon luster as

He gazed upon the monolith. Its surface laced

With crazing and gold leaf. It beckoned

To him in tones of fluctuating values.

Serve me.

It commanded.

Worship me.

It hissed.

His skin had drained,

Gone white as porcelain as

The monolith’s desires crept into him like nocturnal creatures at the first sign of daylight.

Set the fires.

Breathe the ashes.

Worship me.

As hard as he fought to break

From the tendrils of the monolith’s power,

His body moved against his will.

He watched in terror as he set the fires that blacked the city sky,

Wanted to choke as the ashes of the dead filled his lungs,

But his body relished it.

No.

Needed it.

The only way to survive now was to set the fires,

Breathe the ashes,

10

Worship the master.

Loot

Pattering feet of

Little mice race along the floor

Ever rushing for the treasure on the other side of the door.

Asking that we leave them tinder, tasty treats

So that they can feed their families with

Extra love and care.

Looting from our pantries,

Exiting the door,

Traversing treacherous traps to

Make their babies round.

Ever hoping they’ll grow up

Wise enough to win, against

Insidious humans and

Never face the end.

11

Awake

Mind drowning

Alarm blaring

Killing the snooze

Eyes pasted tight

Its agony to move

Too much to bare and

12

The day hasn’t even begun

The Average Day

I feel like an explosion

Blowing in upon itself

Implosion

Eroding away like so much

Nothing

Alone, falling

Like so much broken glass

Into my veins

Folding

Into

Nothing

13

My World

In my Hell there are many eyes

In many rooms

In many halls

In my Hell there many lies

They come in whispers

They buzz like flies

In my Hell there are many ties

Ties that wrap

Ties that bind

They choke and grip, I wish I'd die

14

Empty Soul

Can you hear it?

That sound of an empty soul?

If it’s close behind you,

Heads are bound to roll.

But that sound

Is from within,

And there’s nothing you can do,

To stop

The boundless,

Angry,

Thrumming,

Of

An empty

Soul.

15

You Say I’m a Demon

Human souls are best

With ranch and croutons

Souls are salads

16

Noah

Blond hair and blue eyes

Intensely thin with a confident stride

Too bad I hate you, too bad you hate me

Cut the crap Noah I know you see

Hate is what binds us, it will break us too

Forget about the friendship we outgrew

After a year this bomb still ticks

Count the days you sarcastic prick

Ever after you'll make me sick

17

Screw you

I’d like to punch your stupid face.

You idiotic, conceded, asshole.

18

Tears Under the Water

Hey kiddo, this is you, and you got help!

Those candle lit, music muffled, tantrums in the shower are a thing of the past.

Your parents only saw high water bills when they should have seen your anguish,

But you opened up to your mum, you got medication.

It dulled the pain of being afraid of all those around you

You saw a therapist twice a month in the summer before you started college at Ball State

By the time you quit going to her office, she swore she saw an improvement in you.

You have an amazing roommate, she's just like you.

She helps you, makes you feel safe,

Take your meds every day, take them in the morning.

You cry less that way, you'll still get down but you really do hurt less now.

Chin up you'll make it.

19

Haiku to my roommate

The calamity

Of Ammity is that she

is perfect for me

20

Dreams

Dreams are not so

Different from nightmares and these

Not so different from

Life. They lift spirits up to

Crash them down, break and build.

21

Superglue

I’ve broken so many times

To put myself together

Superglue at my seams

Uncertain were the missing pieces go

Certain though that something is missing

Kicking my heart in time to its beating

Superglue at my seams

22

Beyond Knowing

Shelves full of books,

Beyond knowing

How many there are.

My baby sleeping

On my shoulder,

My husband reads

From the books,

Beyond knowing when

The baby fell asleep.

A family

Beyond what I know now

Beyond what I can guess

But somehow it’s still mine.

23

Art By

L.A. Knott (Cover, 1, 2, 3, 11, 18, 19)

Chelsey Arnold (5, 6, 15, 20)

Kate Leth (4, 7, 16)

Dave McKean (10, 22,)

And Dholl (14)

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Author’s note

This chapbook was a fascinating project. I love artsy things so getting to

design and organize my own book was a real thrill for me. I arranged my poems in

a form that, I hope, flowed from dream to nightmare, nightmare to reality, and

reality to the future, where possibilities are endless. I constantly feel trapped in a

space between and my intention for this chapbook was to bring people into my

world, hence the title, so that they could maybe catch a glimpse of what that

feeling is like.

If anything from the books of poetry we read has crept into my work I hope

it is the humor of Peter Davis, who wrote Tina. His work is hilarious with many

sections where the hilarity comes from a place where something seems bleak. I

feel that most of the work in this book is fairly dark, that’s just how I am, but I

sincerely hope that readers will be able to pick up on the places of underlying

humor as they sift through the murky places in these pages.

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It took a lot of planning and re reading to put this book together and to

decide what belonged where and what images should go with what poems. I am

just grateful that I got the chance to do this to be honest.

It delights me that poetry can be a vehicle for all different genres. Horror,

romance, fantasy, adventure, you name it, it can be made into poetry. It’s not all

nature observation, it’s not all teenage drama and depression, its art and we can

all make it and shape it into whatever form we please, because we are the artist,

the writers, the poets.