8/13/2019 Self Imposed Limits

1/5

self imposed limits

katie hawthorne

FIRSTDOPPELGANGSTERBOOKSEDITION,

DECEMBER2009

Copyright 2009 by Katie Hawthorne

Cover image copyright 2004 by Mark Noke. Used with permission.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the UnitedStates by Doppelganger Books.

TABLEOFCONTENTS

choked.1

drivers ed..4

treason...5

sticky notes.7

schizophreniform..8

truth

...9acknowledgements..10

about the author11

Choked.

She wanted to protect me from all dangers,accusing the filth and the germs that lurked

in the air and the sun and the skies andthe smiles of all of the people I knew.

All along, I was encouraged to believethat the world was an evil place,that it was out to get me,like the vampire that lurked under my bed.

I was told that people were like

8/13/2019 Self Imposed Limits

2/5

peanuts, ready to choke meif I did not stay safely stowedunder her protection.

She ordered my teachersto burn shame into the class door

and my cheeks:No peanuts allowed past this point!

Mom prepared me for battleas thoroughly as Artemiswith the legendary dagger Epipenand aegis Sanitizer.

Clothes transformed into anacondasencircling my body, so that to her, I was safebecause all I could do was nod.Safe is four walls without sunlight.

Mom kept me safe as long as she could.A peanut crawled into my throat:setting every defense present in my bodyon attack--against me.

But Mom couldnt always be there.I swelled and I gasped and I whimpered,I cried for anyone and anythingat the top of my choked lungs.

I plunged the dagger into my thigh.The serpents encircling me slithered away,relinquishing their hold upon my limbs,and my lungs cleared like clouds after a storm.

I breathed.The vampire surrendered to sun,And the words burned to the door melted away,with them, the fire from my cheeks.

I couldnt be her version of safe forever.Ill never be safe; no one is.But I was better than that:I smiled. I was freed.

Treason

Words have betrayed you.Those twenty six gossamer symbolsyou worshipped

8/13/2019 Self Imposed Limits

3/5

fell apart: victims of their nature;they could not hold togetherto mold the messageyou needed to convey.

Words have betrayed you.

Their intensity lured you into believingthat seals of wax gluing feathered nibsto units of meaningcould enable you to defy gravitys limitations,and soar into the skyinto a reality you create.

Words have betrayed you.That dictionary who promisedto contain the horizons in its pagesfell short, and you with it:reduced to depending on legends toldin ink and graphite

of places you cannot reach.

You have betrayed words.Left them crying in the nest,abandoned,starving for emotion to feedtheiryourvicarious flight.You stopped writing.Now, neither of you can fly.

Drivers Ed

Speed anddistancecannot muffle truth:objects in mirrorare much closerthan theyappear.

Sticky Notes

I left a sticky note on your door.

You were out, I saw no reason to call.It's all I had to say. Nothing more

can be done to encouragekinship between us. Speak softly. Talk small.It's all we say anymore.

I found the bottles squirreled away in your drawer.I didn't say anything. I wrote it all

8/13/2019 Self Imposed Limits

4/5

on a sticky note. On your door

there's a graveyard of them: decordisplaying truth I don't want to recall:that they're all I can say anymore.

Be careful. There's glass on the floor.It's from the cup you threw. Im okay. It hit the wall.I left the sticky note on your door.

It makes me that much easier to ignore--my existence confined to yellow squares of scrawl.I left a sticky note on your door.Its all we have to say anymore.

schizophreniform

think: zigzagnebulameandering stream

world: beautifulminusharpys scream

limbs: rebeldesertshaky team

sight: wistfultrappedin waking dream

intelligence: sickconcludingworshipped regime

translation: 404meaningnot todays theme

Truth

Do or do not. There is no try

Jedi Master Yoda

Such an easy thing to claimuntil your wings melt in the sky.

8/13/2019 Self Imposed Limits

5/5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis publication would not have been possible without the endless and unrelenting editing

marks and the exercises provided by Professor Ross White. Thank you for the candid commentsthat bled over all of my poems. Heres to the acceptance that the poems in this volume will

never be complete. Cheers!

ABOUTTHEAUTHORKatie Hawthorne, aka doppelgangster (for reasons undiscussed in this volume), is currently afirst year undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While she

does not foresee a successful poetry career ahead of her (especially not one that follows strictconventions of meter), she does intend to continue writing poetry.