Dirty Laundry

You asked me not to love you
Took my soul
Torque and twisted
Until darkness flowed
Like well used oil
In a steady stream.
Rat-a-tat tat
Onto the
Waiting white paper

All I could do was watch
As it ran down your arm
And dripped dripped
Onto my just cleaned
Creamed linoleum floor

That's going to leave a stain
I thought
And the cat will walk through it
And make tracks all through the house
Everyone will know
It's me

And they'll peer through the glass
See bits of this and that
Say I never imagined
She seemed so clean
Wrung and hung out to dry
Misshapen
And flapping in the wind.

Terri Perez is a married mother of two and currently employed as an emergency room nurse. She has been writing since she was a little girl and remembers writing poetry at night after she was supposed to be in bed. She would hide under the covers and write late into the night by flashlight. Even after the flashlight was taken away, she couldn't stop writing. She’d hide pencil and paper in her pillow case and write in the dark, always trying to get that last thought down on paper, hoping it would make sense (and that she would be able to read it) in the morning. She enjoys children and has had several opportunities to speak with them in their classrooms about poetry. Her goal is to have kids change the way they think about poetry. It doesn't have to be boring or weird or hard to understand. Poetry can be fun, exciting and even cool. She still writes every day (and her best work is still written at night) and currently she is working on publishing her own book of poetry.

Help Spread the Word

Want to foward the information on this page to a friend? Click the Dirty Laundry, by Terri Perez page link now for an easy way to e-mail your friends a link back to this page.

(Please note this link opens in a new window, so please make sure your pop-up blocker is deactivated.)