Silent Squall: Poems

by Alfa

Overview

A poetic portrayal of the unseen tempests of emotional and physical abuse from the bestselling author of Abandoned Breaths and I Needed a Viking.

Raw and honest, the acclaimed author of I Find You in the Darkness shares her intensely personal, yet relatable stories through finely woven poetry. This new edition of Silent Squall includes an updated introduction and a brand-new chapter of modern poetry. Find understanding, comfort, and hope from the affecting poetry of Silent Squall.

I have singed wings,

and the edges of my heart

are charred, and crisp

by flames of your dismissal.

Yet even though I sift

through ashes of the past,

as I maneuver through

tomorrow . . .

my soul’s fingerprint

will be everlasting.

—Alfa

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250233585
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/01/2024
Series:	Sticker Mosaics , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

ALFA is a retired medical professional who has spent most of her career in Radiation Therapy. She credits her ability to express painful life experiences by studying the human body from the inside out. Unapologetic about her realistic take on heartache, she writes to let her readers know they are not alone in their pain. Alfa is the author of several books of poetry, including I Find You in the Darkness, Amid Thirsty Vines, and Abandoned Breaths. Follow her on Instagram.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Flight

Understand

I'm standing in a palatial courtroom that dates back before the Civil War. The smell of
160 years of furniture polish and cleaning solutions weighs heavily in my lungs, and I try in vain not to breathe in through my nose.
Their odor has not disinfected the permanence of all the souls who have stood here before me.

I feel them. I hear them warning me, telling me there is a deadly fight before me. At this point, I am just numb.

It's taken me sixteen years to get here, and can any battle compare to what has led me here? I've reached a point where nothing else matters except my sanity, and most days I cannot find any evidence of that either.

I hear the judge say my name, and I look up into eyes that are curious and searching —
and a flicker of hope begins to burn within my chest.

Not like the time he held me against the wall with one arm for fifteen minutes, and I couldn't wear a bra for three weeks because my insides burned so badly. Not that kind of burn. But I feel an authentic, hopeful flame burning within me. Maybe, just maybe, she will be the one to understand.


Does He Hit You?

Blows without hands.

Each strike a verbal assault.
Intimidation with a stare.


Cleansing

I know my worth ... now.

My therapy sessions are paying off. There was a time when I did not think I was worth two corroded pennies rubbed together.

My therapist claims this is normal.

But, if I had to pinpoint a time in my life when I felt as worthless and as meaningless as hot dog scum —

yes, it's real stuff — it would be the awakening my twenty-something-year-old-self
had while scrubbing 30-year-old, once-white bathroom tile grout with a nail file at 3 a.m.

While the babies and my husband slept, I labored over the most ridiculous of tasks,
trying in vain to make our helter-skelter lives pristine, Mayberryish and fairytale like.

I thought that bleach, Pine Sol,
and elbow grease could wash the pain away,
send the misery gurgling down the drain.

In some twisted way, I hoped the cleanliness I tried to impart would wash the filth away from my soiled soul.
I felt dirty ... and used. Spoiled goods.
I was dependent upon a man for my emotional and physical stability.

My lot in life was to please him, not rile him.

Please him: always my thoughts were of pleasing him.

Make him happy. Keep him calm.

The kids don't need to hear him angry. He will ignore them if he's mad at me. He likes the house clean.

Clean ... makes him ... tolerable.

The carpets require vacuum marks — just so.
One direction. Unified. Back and forth.

The bathroom should be immaculate. Wash and shine shampoo bottles.

Fold the towels just right. Creases left and right.

The tile must glow. The grout is old ...

my fingers are raw and peeling. Droplets of my blood are on the canvas. The bleach burns ... but scour, I will.

I must prove to this man who thinks I'm nothing that I have worth.
I must justify my worthiness to myself.

So, as I sat there on that cold tile, inhaling bleach fumes, scrubbing

with bleeding fingers, and hating myself all the while, knowing that my life was a delusional screwed-up mess.

I had an awakening.

I did not want to feel worthless anymore.
I wanted it all to go away.

I wanted to start a new life. Begin again.

Blink and make it all go away.

Little did I know, it would take hundreds of these self-awakening cleaning sprees before I acquired the strength

to shake out my fearful feathers, and fly.


Looking Back

I look back on occasion.

It takes only seconds

to recall the parts of me

that I've had to leave behind. All the dirty fragments

I've tried to bury will resurrect

and reassemble for a glimpse.

I look back because it forces me to remember that I've battled as valiantly

as any love-starved fool

for the peace I now possess.
I can say this now ...

"You'll look back one day.

You'll realize all the things you tossed and turned over were not worth

getting into bed with, much less worrying about."


Doing Without

I find ways to numb the pain.

I write.

I release.

And then I hide the notebooks under the blue shag carpet

in the broom closet.

I keep your world immaculate.

I try to please you when I know there is no way to please someone who is displeased with life.

I manage — doing without,

so your lifestyle does not change. The children you take credit for are so beautiful.
I wish you knew

them.

I ask myself:

"How can I hate you, when you gave me something so beautiful?"


An Autumn Soul

One day the leaves begin to change,

along with the love you thought you were in.

You blink against your will, and feel your heart begin to unravel ...

shredding into pieces, as the person who you deemed different begins to change along with the season.

You mouth goodbye as he blends in

with hues of bad decisions,
jack-o-lantern masks,

and pumpkin-spiced kisses.

And you know how the leaves feel

as they fall, dying, onto the ground.


Pity

There are those

who mistake her sorrowful eyes for weak ones.

They connect pain with weakness, or with one's inability

to handle its destruction.

They look away,

with pity riding

their judgmental spines. What they do not understand is that her strength

grew from pain ...

and that she had become her very own

superhero.

It is those people

who never stopped gawking long enough

to offer a helping hand. Because, sometimes,
people see what they want to see.


Grasping Heartache

Why do our souls hold on to fairytales,

and our hearts grasp heartache?


Two Percent

When you look at me,

What is it you see? How do I stack up?

You are much too observant not to categorize me or to tally my mistakes. Have you analyzed me from head to toe, like my therapist does weekly, and made a discovery, a diagnosis?
What is it I suffer from? Is it too much, or are my past aches lacking in your eyes? I have shown you two percent — mere minutes — and you think you know the 98 proof I have bled for years. I've lain on white tile, swimming in red, and prayed for anything but breath.
I've begged for food to feed mouths that were not mine, and I have slept hungry an entire marriage. I have had the dignity slapped from my face, along with every hopeful dream I possessed.

And there are days ... I am back there.

Reliving every moment.

And that's only two percent of me.


Destruction

You left the wind with your exit.

It nearly flattened me, but that's the thing about weathered souls.

Storms with names like yours

unleash our inner strength. Our reserves are layers deep, and we become experts

at learning to rebuild

after our foundations

are ripped away

by surfboarders,

stopping by on frothy waves.

We are survivors

of the human heart condition.


A New Season

Today I feel human.

It is the first time since you left that I have woken up

and wanted to look outside.

I ache to see trees budding,

and the sage-infused grass blowing caches of stored leaves.

A storm brews as cotton clouds turn to nicotine smoke

on the east side.

It will not be long now, and the heavens will open and water winter's neglect.

With spring comes a chest full of hope and I walk outside

to absorb the mist rising off the pavement.

I breathe in the rain

that has come from nowhere,

just as I knew it would, and I love the way

the air tastes as it crawls its way around my chest. Like magic, the gray skies roll back to highlight a sun

so bright that dewy daffodils stand tall and vie for attention.

And it occurs to me, that just like that, our lives can change.

One minute foreboding storms, and then mesmerized by glorious views we can see forever.

It is all so necessary. Would we appreciate one without the other?


The Dance

My screams climb high

and dance in my throat. A tango trying to let go, aching to be heard.

I've never learned the art of letting go.

I've painted pretty pictures with the best of intentions. Brush strokes meant to reveal and release ...

But they are counterfeit. Copies of the flesh

I long to shed.

The original hangs on a wall in my soul ...

Cobwebbed and dust caked. Welcoming me whenever I visit.


Visitors

Your cobwebbed heart with rusty iron gates

is euphoric to them.

They want to enter ...

they want to spend the night

in your icy rooms

and peek in your ransacked closets.

They get prickles from the barren,

the forlorn, and the pain that hurting hearts exhibit. These people are sightseers,
visitors ...

but they never stay.


Caravans

How do you explain

the absence of a person to your soul?

I have the advantage here.

I'm writing about this after a significant amount of time has passed.

My wounds aren't fresh ... but they're still deep.

Time primes your heart.

The ache is still with you every day, but you'll find it is more bearable on day 12,452 than on day seven.

And it's simply because your heart

has become encased in a fortified covering that is almost impenetrable.

The years of growth and neglect have made

it fine pickings for a paranormal ghost tour —
but I pity the caravan that comes gawking.

You see, there are people entranced by anything

ghostly and dark.


Ransom

It was in the darkness that I reached,
clutching memories that ran down a prideful spine.
What could have been the echo of a banshee's last wail.
I did not willingly let half of my soul leave my body.
It was torn from me.
I still hear ransomed moans.
It calls to me for rescue,
yet clings to its abductor


Examine Within

You are going to question yourself.

Beat yourself up with self-doubt, remorse,
and regret.

After you stop blaming him you will start blaming yourself.

The interrogation turns inward with a right hook you never saw coming.

You will place your heart on the witness stand and you will be thorough in your technique.
When someone walks away,
we always turn the mirror around.
We examine within.

We pick ourselves apart ... piece by piece,
and we are unforgiving in our punishment.

If you did not love yourself before, or at least like yourself a little ... you are going to shatter.

We have all been there. Immersed in pain.
The breath-catching kind

that renders you emotionally bereft.
Implosion.

It's times like this that you must hold on to your self-worth.
Or at least try to.

It's hidden down a long slippery slope.

Hold tight to a measure of self-love.

Grasp it with all you have left.

Wrap yourself in the arms of your outstretched soul.

Comfort yourself.

There's always the faintest of lines between love and hate

when someone chooses to leave you.

But, don't hate.

Don't hate a person you once loved because they've left you.

Nothing will impale your soul with such force

as replacing love with hate. Love yourself ...

That kind of love will get you through

any kind of heartache.

That ... and time.


Residue

How do I make you feel it?

Tunneling between my ribs, the ache that molds

and reduces my curves to fragmented lines.

I want to scrape you from my insides.

Rid myself of your smell. It is a part of me,

seeping from my core. Tangled with the fright and the angst I carry.

I harbor townhomes of our past.

A community built upon

a ground with no foundation. The ghastly,
incessant shaking at the mere thought

of seeing you again

is rendering me mosaic. I've spent half my life in your vision,

married to your last name,
and I want none of it. No more.

But you keep on haunting. The memories will not leave. Everywhere I look, I see you.

I see the dirt you've left behind, and I find myself cleaning

up after you, even when you

are no longer here.

I peek behind doors.

I hear you breathing at night and I pat the bed to make sure you are really gone.

I do not talk above a whisper in case you can still hear me. You're not here,

but you're still everywhere.


Earthquake

My soul was an earthquake.

Always on edge in fear of you.


Orchestrated

I used to fear the air

coming in and out of my lungs,
because you were

a part of every breath.

Each inhalation was orchestrated
by your hand ...

I feared I could not

do something as simple

as take in

and release air.


My Government

You tower over me.

Your shadow is my government.

You hurl words that my cowering self thinks are deserved.

I play dumb because it makes you appear intelligent.

Everything about me is hidden.

My beauty you once loved

is packed away between crisp eyelet sheets;
tucked in a balsam-wood hope chest

that you never let me open.

All my youth lies at the bottom of an unused bed,

held prisoner with a cellmate of hope.


Strangle

You tried.
But your hands could never quiet her soul.


I Feel Everything

I feel everything.

I look around,

and I try to see the world the same way you do.

But ...

I see noise.

I hear colors.

I feel everything.

My answers have no questions and my words have no rhyme. I'm empathetic to a fault, but my bones are numb. I scream from morning to night, but my vocal cords hum into silence.

I see noise.

I hear colors.

I feel everything.


Support

Eventually you will reach a point where you observe and take stock of the support system in the foundation of your life. You decide to remove the ornamental, and you pledge to give back to everyone who has uplifted you, loved you, and stood by you.


Heavy Times

Days spent in listless embodiment.

Praying for death but wanting so badly to choose to live.

Clinging to the molecules in the air as a reason to open swollen eyes.

Climbing imaginary cliffs and free-falling.

Feeling the wind blow tear-soaked hair, as the troubles lie heavily behind.


Ancestry

When you have had enough, your soul will rise up with the strength of your ancestors,

each one holding luminous lanterns, lighting the trail to ensure you escape

the darkness.


Missing Someone

You can miss someone whom your heart hates ...

Did you know that?

It doesn't mean you want them back; quite the contrary, you do not at all ...

but you're a newborn learning to live life again, and your breaths are for one and not two.

And it will seem labored and empty, breathing in the air they once occupied.

You'll find yourself blank-faced, head between your legs, inhaling. Feeling like you're missing something. You take in full, deep breaths that you've been holding, thinking everything in your life up to this point was all a dream.

You don't want the part back that you have cut out. You don't. You can miss the person whom you once upon a time thought was your fairytale.

You can miss the normalcy and the routine of a life that you worked so hard at — and all for naught.

Because, Poof. You're free. Finally, free.

And you're alone.

And you're breathing.

But the emotional ties are still harnessed tightly to yesterday, and you're trying to figure out how to survive tomorrow.


Safe Place

I am sitting cross-legged

in a closet that smells of one hundred years of decay and stored memories. Faded peony wallpaper covers plaster walls, and I can tell you there are 241 blooms from top to bottom and side to side. I have carved a seat amid the storage. A place for me to sit and contemplate survival. I count backwards from 100, and when I get to 37, I breathe. When the world is closing in, I close myself in here. I should be frightened, even nauseated, by the confinement. It is dank and exudes odors of old cedar and the previous owners' clothes.
There are mice here, but I don't look down when I hear them scurrying. I have found a place where no one else wants to be. They don't look for me here. I think about tomorrow and I wonder how I will walk among the normal people. I feel another wave hit me. Drumrolls in my ears. I clutch my chest. It hurts to inhale. I pray and cry and pray and cry. I am
24 years young, but I feel as old as the flowers lining the walls. I pray and cry.
I pray ... and cry.


Freedom

One day your soul will get sick of crawling,
find its legs,
and walk right out the door.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Silent Squall"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Alfa.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Flight
In the Air
Landing
Finding Me
Acknowledgments
About the Poet