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The Sunday Poem: Someone Else's Hair, by Sirena Rayes

Good morning and good Sunday, Albuquerque! Rich Boucher here, poet, desert compound prophet and DitchRider Guest Editrix for the month of June. I've given a lot of thought to how I wanted to steer this ship during Jon's time away, and I really wanted to use this opportunity to showcase some poets who would not normally showcase themselves. Last week's Benjamin Bormann feature was really the start of that, and this morning I continue on that mission with another fantastic poet.

A poet, in fact, who in my estimation is one of Albuquerque's best-kept secrets....

...Sirena Rayes can be seen and heard from time to time at various open mic nights throughout the city of Albuquerque. A quiet but very powerful presence on the scene, and not one to toot her own horn, despite the fact that the strength, real-life-based immediacy and sheer, brutal vividity of her work certainly warrants a heralding....

Someone Else's Hair

they ask for my name

and then take it

sign here

one more at the bottom

and I was just one more at the bottom

of a handful of pills

or a bathroom floor

the cold water

between my toes reminds me

I wasn't here first

someone else's hair

on leftover soap

on the wall

in the drain

I want to leave

but I can only leave the empty

plastic containers they put my pills

and shampoo in

they won't even give me Q-tips

they give me instructions

give me a bed time

a hospital gown

give me pink walls

and rice krispy treatments

and take

my blood in tubes

go ahead

test me

as soon as I pop

my breakfast spork through the plastic

ask me how I'm feeling

on a scale of 1 to 10

they have a funny definition

of doing good

I must've complicated things

somewhere down that dotted line

it's actually quite easy

tell me I'm doing good

when a cigarette or a switchblade

doesn't fall out of my bra

during inspection

call me clean

show me to the towels

and my therapist

for the day

I sleep with my knees

very safely tucked in

to my chest

how do you sleep at night

doctor?

--Sirena Rayes

Poetry submissions are welcome. Email theditchrider@gmail.com.

3 members like this

Comment by Ben Moffett on June 17, 2012 at 9:01am: Damn, this is a good poem! Thanks. I remember my last hospital stay in February. Time to leave and I get the 1 to 10 treatment. "Six," I say. "Don't you want to go home?" the doc asks. "Yes," I say. "Two." The doc says I'll be released in two hours, after I take one more pill.

Comment by Merimee Moffitt on June 17, 2012 at 9:12am: Sirena, you go deep, Woman. Ah yes--the theys of the world with all their fixits for jobs--sad and serious poem--survivalism. sock it to us, sister

Comment by Dee Cohen on June 17, 2012 at 9:19am: Good poem that captures the world of being inside: alienation, loss of self, surrender of control. From the first line, they have taken your name- and won't give it back until you behave... Thanks, D

Comment by Julie Brokken on June 17, 2012 at 10:51am: ❤ love ya chica!

Comment by Margaret Randall on June 17, 2012 at 5:39pm: Strong poem! Thank you. Does a great job of contrasting what we get with what we need.

Comment by Aaron Greenwood on June 17, 2012 at 9:43pm: "someone else's hair”, is a powerful poem and has a clarity that captures mood and reality. I like its coldness and its warmth. It is edgy and strong. What I see is the impersonal world of those who "do good". They never see the person, just the abstraction that they were taught at the university. Their sheepskin hanging on the wall is all they need to validate their status over you. On the inside they have you. On the inside they think you belong to them. But on the inside of you, there are eyes that see the reality they would beat out of you if they could. The outside world is not much different, they just hide their malice better.

The images go beyond the words in a way that your poem does not confine my thoughts. It is like something interesting to look at, to ponder. I am reminded of linoleum and white tile or glossy paint and florescent lights. The hair on the soap is like the way a dog leaves her scent, a casual reminder of another time, another life in the same place. We all leave hair or specks of skin as go from her to there. It doesn't have much meaning except in strange showers.

Comment by cc on June 19, 2012 at 7:49pm: good attitude in this poem - how they treat you, where this takes place, in an institutional, impersonal way - this kinda treatment needs an honest word play like this to challenge it!