Art I adore by people I adore!

Artists featured: Anna Pickard, Aspen Clark, Cecilia Klimon, Jeanne Billings, Kathryn Super, Madeline Renshaw, Riley Vallot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is an apple

Still an apple

When it’s covered all

In dirt?

 

When I tell you

I am hurting

Do you think of me

As hurt?

– Madeline Renshaw, Stickers, September 20th, 2022

 

 

 

You are already

At the meeting place

 

I never made it. I never

Make it anywhere

 

And the last train

Just left for the evening

 

And of course, 

I am not on it

 

I am going home

This is over

 

I am dead in the attic

I wanted it to be you

 

But it isn’t you. 

It isn’t you.

 

I am going home

This is over

-Madeline Renshaw, Never Leaving Town, July 13th, 2022

 

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I watch myself rot, I let myself down

If God loved me, he’d have told me by now.

-Madeline Renshaw, Living Thing, July 18th, 2022

 

You cut yourself open

And bled out on the tile

To see if our reds were the same.

 

They were. I couldn’t tell you,

But they were.

-Madeline Renshaw, Unrequited, June 16th, 2022

 

On your shelf are all my thoughts

In pickle jars, they’re tightly locked

At night, they bump against the lids

And I think, we would have been good friends as kids.

 

I watch the old hands of a clock

And think of all the things I’m not

The seconds snap by, like a twig

And I think; we would have been good friends as kids

 

So, catch me in a different time

Or, catch me in a different life

Where I still have all of my ribs

 

I don’t really know myself

Could I take a look at your shelf?

Oh, what’s that banging on the lids?

Oh, don’t you think that we would have been good friends as kids?

– Madeline Renshaw, Pickle Jars

 

There are blades of grass

And beads of salt water

Stuck to your skin

 

And I am well aware,

The Earth belongs

To no one.

 

But against all logic

If they were to ask, 

I’d tell our first visitors

 

That the trees breathe.

That the sun burns, and

The moon pulls the tides

 

That the starlight reaches us

And the waves crash

Against the rocky shores

 

For you, 

For you,

All for you.

– Madeline Renshaw

Now that I am twenty two

My day starts with a tick

And another tick, and another tick, and so on

With a rope, and a little orange flame

And I watch, as it slowly

Eats the rope away

– Madeline Renshaw, Twenty two, February 9th, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need someone to want me. I need someone to care. I need someone to hug me and always be there. I need someone who’ll laugh. I need someone who’ll cry. I need somewhere who’ll be there and never want to say goodbye. I need someone who’s honest. I need someone who’s strong. I need someone who’s loving and will never treat me wrong. I need someone who’ll love me. I need someone who’ll feel. I need someone who’ll show me that what we have is real. – Jeanne Billings

It is winter
And I fall back on sadness
Like a bed at the end of the day
– Madeline Renshaw, Winter (March 11th, 2022)

I feel a terrible ache
It whispers to me, something is wrong
Something is missing
Something awful is lurking
Waiting nearby

And I wonder
If that terrible ache
Is just life, from the moment
You first feel it
Until the second before you die
– Madeline Renshaw (January 11th, 2022)

I sought control. I knew the more strings sewn into me, the more directions I could be tugged. So, with scissors, I cut myself loose. And on the very last cut, I fell limp to the floor. I hadn’t known it till then, but I had become just like the marionette. All I can do now is lie here, dead, hoping that someone will string me to life again. – Madeline Renshaw, The Marionette (February 27th, 2022)

There will always be testament to the snake, with his endless piles of discarded skin. So I write for the tiny bones of baby birds, lying on the dirt above the roots of the tree. And for the insect guts smeared on the front window, and the rotting corpse of an angry honeybee, and the snap of the mouse’s neck. For anything that was, and then wasn’t in an instant. For anyone who could, but in their lifetime couldn’t. For every. Lasting proof of their failure, that is also proof of their life. – Madeline Renshaw, For Lost Time (March 16th, 2022)

There is a sound
Gut-wrenching and bloodcurling
Vibrating under the bone of my chest

And never a right moment
To release it
– Madeline Renshaw, Female Insides (January 7th, 2022)

What I’ve loved, has had its life
Torn from its body.
What I’ve cared for, is now
A carcass in the sand.
I am scraping what is left
Of my love, from its bones. 
So the vultures can eat my love
From my hand
– Madeline Renshaw, Feeding (March 21st, 2022)