Angeline Schellenberg’s poems appear in recent issues of Rhubarb, Geez, and CV2, and are forthcoming in The Beautiful Women Anthology and Prairie Fire. She was Méira Cook’s apprentice in the 2012 Manitoba Writers’ Guild mentorship program and received a Manitoba Arts Council grant for her developing poetry collection about autism. Angeline holds a masters in biblical studies and works as a journalist and copy editor in Winnipeg, where she's scared winter will never end.


Sleeping with the TV on

out of bed                                       I need a Hand
out of Skull                                    Hand
out of self                                       a severed Hand
                                                                                                      (close my Eyes
                                                                                                      which Face is mine)
knobless door
between my breaths                                 Arms nailed to boards
behind me                                                my Head screwed to a bowling pin that's

Falling
                                                      dolls from trash
                                                      reach up to stroke

             (all is blood
& heat & Hair)
                                                                 leech from Throat to Thigh
                                                                 births worms inside each pore
                                                                              in veins of Black

each flash – red Eye                     my demon’s writing on the wall
in rotting Flesh

in attic
Smell                                           Smell
                                                    ether Smell                                 smeared
                                                                                                       Black wax
                                                                                                        scorched Flesh
blank di
dominoes                                                              alone (a scream
Falling                                                        no one can hear)

blink
Black & white flicker


What am I scared of?

I’m scared my ex-boyfriend will step from the corners of my nightmares to laugh at what I dared become without him.
I’m scared I’ll die wondering what to make for supper.
I’m scared my tombstone will read still searching for her keys.
I’m scared everything I hate about my body will be replaced with parts I don’t recognize.
I’m scared I’ll grow a beard and forget to care.
I’m scared that when I close my eyes I stop being me.
I’m scared of the stallion who rides off with my soul when I sleep.
I fear everything – hawks, missiles, demons – that falls out of the sky. Everything insatiate that burrows beneath the skin. Fear is a wire twisting in my chest shooting shocks to my brain.
I’m scared of the way I carried my lunch that forced the class to quietly pick up their sandwiches and move to the other side of the room.
I’m scared the girl I once was, the girl who couldn’t say “mint chocolate, please,” will rip open my face and dangle from my nose where everyone can see.
I’m scared my father’s There’s something wrong with your girl follows me like the speech bubble-sized stain on the back of my skirt.
I’m scared the school bus will catch me.
I’m scared I’ll see the Scarborough Rapist cutting a girl’s orange at the bus stop and no one will believe me.
I’m scared of the bearded man who climbs through Winnipeg windows on summer nights.
I’m scared Horatio Caine and Jethro Gibbs don’t exist.
I’m scared my dead embryo is a perpetually decomposing fear inside me.
I’m scared I’ll have to choose between wetting my pants and holding onto my son at the mall, between being hit by a car and watching him slip under it.
That I’ll see his face just before it’s crushed.
That I’ll wake to your cold body.
I’m scared this will be our last time together and I’ve spent it wishing you hadn’t said that.