#100 -- Poem by Jeri Thompson

The women and music contest takes a new turn with Jeri Thompson's poem inspired by Sia's "Chandelier."

Chandelier… One Interpretation

                               (35 years later, 

                                            for Sia)

I was the girl

Hanging onto the night

Clawing at the moon and stars

To stop their rotation.

Stoli on the rocks, six nights a week,

Dim Hollywood haunts,

Did nothing to blur the mirror’s

Lazy-eyed gaze back

At everyone’s good-time call.

Party girls don’t get hurt?

I gave myself away so many times

Looking for my treasure within strangers

Drought-fisted fingers and empty upturned hands.

I don’t give up easily (stubborn? probably), yet

All the bottomless cocktails and swinging from chandeliers

Did nothing to quell the rage of solitude

Inside all those vast, star-filled nights starving for touch…

Then next mornings with hangover-eyes, searching for my keys

                                                                                 and panties.

Tomorrow always comes, even if you don’t see the sun.

We all find our way, eventually, mapped out

In the gaze of that lazy-eyed stranger in our own mirror.

Soon, but not soon enough, you will no longer need the night.

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This poem previously appeared in Cadence Collective (December, 2014).

And here is Sia's "Chandelier":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM

This video is quite eerie.