Colleen Machut is a teacher and a writer from Sheboygan, WI. She lives there with her husband, Trent, and their son, Desmond. Colleen and Trent write and perform songs in the lakeshore area of Wisconsin. Colleen has poems published or forthcoming in Impspired, Open Skies Quarterly Edition 1, Open Skies Quarterly Edition 3, Jalmurra, Creation and the Cosmos Anthology, Anxious Times Magazine, and CORE: Dance Poems Volume III.

Regardless of You

You are the rogue one; the brave -
Dismissing society's lines
As color-by- number nonsense
Meant to inhibit, define, and repress.
You are the life breath;
The breaker of rules -
The train that souls hop
To escape to far away places;
Free of the mundane.

You are the one, wise beyond the lines -
Uninhibited.
You are the insightful one,
Who channels the universe
And swirls the stars;
Who knows things beyond knowing
And fills hearts
With sparkles.
The one who dives
Into piles of leaves
On a magic night
In the middle of the street.

You are the one
Consumed by self-love -
Who puts himself before
And holds himself above;
Who binds with lines
And then betrays
When whims change
From day to day -
Whose desires take first place.
Even time is a line untraced
As you smile inside and watch them wait,
Pretending not to manipulate.

Vagabond
Prophet
Narcissist

I have called you all of these.
But you never listened long enough
To know what to call me.

You may call me:
The asker of why's;
The writer of rhymes;
The lighter of fires -
The one who is willing to cry
Every time;
Who filters the lines
And, when wise, draws outside.

A believer
that true love
Comes with bonds, but not chains,
And the shore can be more
Than a soft landing place -

That I can swirl my own stars,
Find my own sparkles,
Fill my own heart;

That one should listen more than speak
And share love outward unconditionally.

Regardless of you, this is what I believe.
Regardless of you, this is me.

A Poem Instead

He leaves a residue in my mind-
Acidic, which gnaws
And frays every sensible neural pathway
Until I am a mess of tangled live wire,
Spitting and hissing for no reason at all;
A spiral-eyed asylum cat,
Claw-slicing walls.

This residue is venom;
The antithesis of every drug
Meant to numb
Or equalize;
Meant to calm or synchronize.
It leaves me
A foolish, pathetic, disheveled she-devil,
Born to be ashamed,
Trying not to speak his name -
Feigning hate.

A token ask
Spurs cyclones
Of times past;
Emotions refract
Beneath stoic glass.
Eye-glance turns to avalanche.

Suddenly I'm dangling on a string
Of fabricated summoning.
Numbers relentless,
I send a simple sentence
And invite endless entrance
Into my mind.

In morning flutter-light,
Wisdom wins,
But in the curse of dreams
His voice returns again…
Because I don't have the convenience
Of a set of reasons
To disqualify sins
And resolve deserved pain;
And so, after years,
It remains.

Philosophy of Convenience

Yours is a philosophy of convenience.
You justify each blemish
And fabricate each reason
Based on nothing more
Than a shiny metaphor.

You aspire in your philosophy
To make every act acceptable
And everyone susceptible
To the enzymes of your spectacle.

You stroll through my vicinity,
Bloated with masculinity-
Measuring the salinity
Of my tears of vulnerability.

Are you oblivious? Isn't it obvious?
Do you lack the intelligence
to see the relevance
Of broken trust between us…

Or does your salutation
Reek of manipulation…
Your addiction to attention
Makes me question your intention.

Regardless, I must rearrange-
Claim the name I never changed.

I am enough
In and of myself.

And someday I won't have to hate
To separate my fate from you.

Your treason
Won't be the reason
Why I cry.

My endeavors will be forever
Independent of yours,
And I’ll forfeit your endorsement
Without scorn.

I'll reject your reasons,
Spin my own seasons-

And omit all leniency toward your convenience.