Maisie Williams | Rattle: Poetry

Maisie Williams

TWO DOVES

Part of grass

like hair swept back

Moon stone sweat

of dew beading on the

sidewalk we walked together,

hand in hand, two palms

with no air between them,

two doves with nowhere to fly

Now, what is lost beads in the air between us

like fog, like rain, and what is lost whispers

through the grass, like storm, like wind

But there is no wind

and the birds above us, flying in formation,

look so close together from down here:

stitches in fabric of air or an ellipse on an

ellipse, on an ellipse, two lips closing in on

each other, two double doors swinging in

But I’m sure they are actually

far apart, so far apart maybe they don’t

even know they are together,

I’m sure it is that far apart,

actually,

I’m sure it is insurmountable

—from Poets Respond
August 25, 2020

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Maisie Williams: “As I move back on campus for university, I think about how insurmountable all these new challenges feel, and how much is lost in the distance between us.”

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Maisie Williams

MTA

It’s funny how the sound means nothing

A shot like the loudest heartbeat

Is nothing compared to the engine heat on my side lying on the floor of the bus

Afterwards all I could think was Of Course

Of Course it was real and Of Course they came from the school

And Of Course I was there when it happened

They say we can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality

And I kept thinking I know when I’m asleep and when I’m awake

I didn’t realize they meant we no longer knew how to act while awake

Like water shooters

Like toys, like pointed trigger fingers

Like the loudest heartbeat

Like the sound

Of hitting the bass drum

When the tarp tears

I spent forever trying to describe that sound

All after it had happened

Which is funny, because it didn’t mean anything to me then

I kept thinking Is this real?

I kept thinking It can’t be

I kept thinking while it was

The sweat sticky on my fingers

I don’t put my headphones on

I want myself to suffer the sound of the sirens and know it could have been me

I want to tell him

I want to tell her

I don’t

I lie to my parents so they don’t have to worry

I lie to my friends because they don’t need to know

I lie to myself when I say I’m okay

Lying on the floor of the bus

Is the first time I think of death and am legitimately scared

My life does not flash by but I think of my mother and how I don’t want this for her

When I feel that I am about to die

For the first time

My only regrets are never being loved and my mother having to find me this way

I say, “It all looks different: strollers with blankets on top.”

“Kids laughing too loud, like, are you laughing or screaming?”

“Strange people,” I pause, “Hands in pockets.”

—Poets Respond
May 1, 2016

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Maisie Williams: “A shooting occurred at my bus station. The first one ever there … and it happened while I was there. This poem is made of short pieces, because it happened so fast, and because my feelings about this event came to me in quick intervals as I slowly came to terms with what was happening. This poem is one of many small bursts of feeling that occurred throughout a week of trying to ignore and forget. Tiny memories I clung to, conversations I had with friends who were there too. This is sort of my path of grieving. I put all of these tiny poems together like stanzas, but they really exist on their own as separate three-line poems. It makes more sense to me this way. I just want to accept what happened.”