Ugly Things: A Collection of Poems

Golden

When walking today, I stumbled across

A golden heart

It beamed at me from the damp brown grass

How nice, how pretty

A perfect gold heart

I’ll take it home

I’ll shine it up

I’ll keep it forever

Won’t my friends be jealous

My perfect gold heart

How the sun touched it

How the earth held it

Offered it out to me

The little gold heart

Oh how lovely, how gleamy you are

What chance what luck

That I found you

How the light loves you

And I will too

My darling gold heart

I will keep you with me

I will carry you in my pocket 

Wherever I go

My golden heart will come along

Oh how happy I am 

How good you are

Too good to be true

Here, let me reach out for you

You cheerful gold heart

But what now?

It cannot be

The heart crackles to my touch

The golden paint comes away

It’s a piece of trash

How could I have known

Why didn’t I know?

My sweet golden heart

Is plastic

My dog is at my side, my companion

She sniffs that little heart

Once, twice

Then she pees on it

I shrug, we walk on

That stupid gold heart

I’ll try to forget

That perfect gold heart

Fresh Air

The air is crisp

My throat is cold

The match is bright 

My hands are old

I take it in

The smoke flows round

As I look up

My thoughts wind down

Now what I pushed for,

Hungered, chased,

Is in my hand

For me to taste

The satisfaction

May draw near

But never really completely

Here

What has begun

Can never end

And so my wounds 

Refuse to mend

You burn me so

You make me blind

And still somehow

You ease my mind

You’re always there

When I awake

And so the pain

I’ll gladly take

For it’s not here

Won’t ever be

And so I’d love

To poison me

Treasure Hunting

You said: let’s go treasure hunting

And so happily I went

We ventured through valleys and over great mountains

The sky grew bluer than blue can be

We helped each other over rocks and over rivers

Through forests dark and pleasing as your eyes

How they shone when you held me

We’ll find our treasure soon you said

We camped beneath trees great and old

So tall they were 

I feel so small I said 

You assured me I had the strength of all the trees

In night wild beasts came and tried to drag me away

You fought them off

You said: nothing can keep us from our treasure

And so we continued, we travelled across vast prairies

The dry grass beamed pure gold in the sun

You said: wait right there

You took my picture

And how happy I was to be beautiful as the grass, as the new day

Our journey had gone so long

One night in the mountains

A great wind came and blew our tent away

You said: this just won’t do, we’ll never find the treasure

I pleaded I begged surely we can’t be far

Surely our treasure waits for us

You agreed

But your eyes became flat as rocks

Still we kept on

We drudged through a swamp neck high

The sky became dark and I held onto you for my life

When a storm crossed our seemingly endless path

At long last we came to a grove which led us to a beach

I dug and dug, spraying sand 

My hands burned

But here it was

A smooth wooden chest, I pried off the lid

Heaps of treasure, gold and platinum and priceless gems

I gathered all that I could

I said: this is more than I could have imagined, help me carry it

But you were no longer there

And so I sat

With all my treasures

Too heavy to carry alone

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Grace Mahaffy is a 19-year-old Professional Writing Student who has lived in Ottawa virtually forever. She enjoys visual art, music, literature, and spending quality time with her dog.