Vanessa Vrtiak bio:In the daytime, Vanessa serves low income families as a Home Visitor for Northcoast Children's Services. At night, she attends graduate school pursuing her MA in Sociology. She plans on directing a non profit serving people that have suffered from the cycle of incarceration and need support reintegrating back into the community. Vanessa continuously uses her poetry as a tool to promote social activism, but also to remind herself and others how truly precious life. She is currently creating a full length traveling performance that will reach across the country, growing a community garden filled with more love than her two hands can hold, and finishing her sixth chapbook.
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Vanessa Vrtiak
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My Mother’s Grievance
what was her funeral like
did you see her body
was it burned to pieces
did you cry
were your brothers playing in the background
rolling on dead weeds, faces kissing plummeted earth, fingers entwined with rage
was she wearing a yellow dress
were her lips upside down melting in the sun
did you feel stuck in time
while preachers found this death an opportunity
did you feel alone
as you rose from your plastic chair
sermons splitting sense down the back of your skull asking you to run towards her
as she lowered intro the roaring laughter of daffodils without the scent of pollen
where bees keep their distance.
did you want to run away
teeth equipped for biting down on regrets
did you remember her smell
did it exist still on your fingers that afternoon
did you loose your senses
sight covered by salt
did you forget how to love yourself
has the wind come to you
has she told you that death brings change
and that your still a bright June bug who can know pain and the presence of God
she will whisper
your fruit is yet to come
what was her funeral like
did you see her body
was it burned to pieces
did you cry
were your brothers playing in the background
rolling on dead weeds, faces kissing plummeted earth, fingers entwined with rage
was she wearing a yellow dress
were her lips upside down melting in the sun
did you feel stuck in time
while preachers found this death an opportunity
did you feel alone
as you rose from your plastic chair
sermons splitting sense down the back of your skull asking you to run towards her
as she lowered intro the roaring laughter of daffodils without the scent of pollen
where bees keep their distance.
did you want to run away
teeth equipped for biting down on regrets
did you remember her smell
did it exist still on your fingers that afternoon
did you loose your senses
sight covered by salt
did you forget how to love yourself
has the wind come to you
has she told you that death brings change
and that your still a bright June bug who can know pain and the presence of God
she will whisper
your fruit is yet to come
The Hunger
There is something about the way you left me
cracked open
the contents of my chest exposed
like the heart of a sacred book
dog eared and swollen from being read too many times
the thunder clap still in my bedroom window
a streak of shoe polish down my face
sheets greased from days of disappearance
you uttered my song
subaqueous in your throat
read it like the Sunday’s funny pages to your friends
you drew bridges from the base line of my soul
and I caught you speaking of our future
and as if all at once
worship crumbled love
clouds were left heavy with convulsion
in the deepest fever sweats of summer
you bent me over a picnic table
had me believe in you
even though you knew we were nearing our end
and in in your thrusting
I fell from the sky
side split in purple lighting
my body was something you conquered
yet still a place you promised you would not visit again
There is something about the way you left me
cracked open
the contents of my chest exposed
like the heart of a sacred book
dog eared and swollen from being read too many times
the thunder clap still in my bedroom window
a streak of shoe polish down my face
sheets greased from days of disappearance
you uttered my song
subaqueous in your throat
read it like the Sunday’s funny pages to your friends
you drew bridges from the base line of my soul
and I caught you speaking of our future
and as if all at once
worship crumbled love
clouds were left heavy with convulsion
in the deepest fever sweats of summer
you bent me over a picnic table
had me believe in you
even though you knew we were nearing our end
and in in your thrusting
I fell from the sky
side split in purple lighting
my body was something you conquered
yet still a place you promised you would not visit again