Lea Biialek is a poet living somewhere in-between Pittsburgh, PA and

Slippery Rock, PA. Her first chapbook, Pho oenix Ashes, is a collection of
stirring personal poems that are inspired by moments and people from
her time at college -- fleeting folks, friends and family, breakups, new
love, and everything in-between.
LEA BIALEK
 To The “Man” That Left
I’m catching up,
burning and blazing adulthood,
arsonist of goals that you, a year ago,
made me feel flawed for not achieving.
You should feel the flames of every milestone
I’m reaching without you;
I hope it burns you to know
that I am not such a child anymore.
I’m feeling the destruction of the garden of Eden,
and damn, does it smoke like fresh renewal.
Do you smell the sins in the clouds?
Smoldering yesterday burns
wildfires of my redemption
right in front of your fleshy palms.
Eat this inferno of words
and tell me if they taste like
phoenix ashes.

I’m reborn.
New feathers, new skin,
laughing your bullshit in the face and saying,
“I am in control today
and no one’s going to stop me.”
Footsteps melt rubber soles on
scorching pavement to the beat of the phrase,
“Give. ‘Em. Hell.”
Give ‘em all hot, scalding Hell because
today I feel like our past
isn’t consuming me,
isn’t defining me,
isn’t ruining me;
Today I feel like if looks could kill
I’d be a mass murderer.

This is me, baby, screaming

This is my
comeback.
I am a
phoenix.
These are our
ashes.
I’ve snuffed yours
Lea M. Bialek Copyright © 2015 out.
First Printing And I’m starting new.
Printed in Slippery Rock, Pennslvania

Phoenix Ashes Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. Self-published. Printed in

Pennsylvania, USA. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher, if living,
except for the use of brief quotations in critical reviews and certain other
noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
27
Velveteen
Two years.

I still flashback to
sobbing,
burning,
blaming.
Writing stories of self-loathing with fingers that wept and
wrote rivers on paper airplanes that had nowhere to go but up,
tossed upward,
graphite hands reaching for something else to hold onto,
something to keep me from floating away and escaping.
Panicked prayers don’t heal
the inevitable
and
they don’t know
the worst
is so very near.

I don’t want you to ignore any of the dirt in the crevices of your palms,
but I want to rain down refreshing like a good friend
to the song my lamplit smile is singing to.
I will help you
like you’re helping me.
To the people and moments that have turned into poems.
Years harden you,
and good friends soften you.

Lately,
I’ve been velveteen
I’ve been morning dew
I’ve been feeling new.

26
It is fall and we’re one.
Skinny kids screaming lyrics to songs
praising plump derrieres,
and I am everything I could
ever wish to be.
We’re dancing to our song,
singing proudly.
Say you’re proud of us.
Say you’re proud of me.
Say we’re meant to be
friends for life.
This is a sweeter than
pumpkin spice happy hour.
I set lost love free from
my weathervanes.
Holding your compass hands.
Point me to home.
Point me to leaves
falling
like
stars.
Last fall, I fell.
But this fall,
I’m falling perfectly
into place.
Perfectly
into myself.

25
The Seasons Have Changed and so Have I Phoenix Ashes
It is fall and I cover up
sunkissed skin like a secret.
My autumn lover and I burn I Will Write .................................................................................................... 6
bright bonfires in our chests,
sipping warm apple cider kisses
on cashmere sweater lips. To the Boy with the Stardust in His Eyes ..................................................... 7
I am something like myself again.
Friendships feel like the moment Grief ............................................................................................................. 8
before a sunset turns caramelized,
promising a lasting taste of Lake Effect ................................................................................................... 9
sweet and sugary beautiful.
Speak of the Devil ...................................................................................... 10
It is winter and
he’s cold as the weather.
Dirty, salted tires tarnish Nightstand Rubble ..................................................................................... 11
fresh snow.
We circle packed parking lots 6 Things I Have Learned in the Past Week, and Am Still Learning ........... 12
looking for lost love.
He leaves like an avalanche.
Letters in July ............................................................................................. 13
I crumble up into a snowball,
allow him to bury me,
trample over my pride. Showering in Sunglasses ........................................................................... 14
Frostbitten,
I feel the weight of him. October 12, 1998 ....................................................................................... 15
Time and tears freeze
in the chill of sadness.
To the Occasional Misogynist, From the Occasional Angry Feminist .. 16-17
It is spring and my blooming
blossoms of best friends thaw me out. The Moon ................................................................................................... 18
I shed winter layers,
April shower tears, Reflecting Absence.................................................................................... 19
and let go of an entire half of a year,
... or at least try to. Storms ........................................................................................................ 20
It is summer
and we speak like close siblings. Never Let Me Go ........................................................................................ 21
Secrets skim the surface
like waves on sand. Fuckboys.................................................................................................... 22
We are scorching smiles sunbathing
by glowing phone screens. Ursa Minor.................................................................................................. 23
I am golden bronze,
a healthy glow.
We are pins on maps with heartstrings The Seasons Have Changed and so Have I......................................... 24-25
anchoring us to the ground, tying us together.
We’ll be one, two, three. Velveteen ................................................................................................... 26
We’ll be free
soon. To the “Man” That Left ............................................................................... 27

24
I Will Write Ursa Minor
I’m always one late night typewriter symphony away from the next poem, You are my midnight sun.
writing my way home in salt water ink, searching for hope in a series of 26 letters, For what seems like light years
thinking maybe college rule could save me from my sometimes-bleeding margins. I’ve been peering through
I drop poems like breadcrumbs, telescope eyes set nebulous.
hoping someone will follow my stanzas all the way to my doorstep, We are galaxies pulsating through veins.
knock to the beat of my Shave and a Haircut heart, We are universes of shining suns
come in, stay a while, while I pen pictures -- underneath little dipper eyelashes.
snapshots of the nights that haunt me, I would flutter kisses
the days I can’t help but sing, from Polaris to Pherkad,
the people that help me through if only I could see you
my mess of nights and days, past the city lights sooner.
the people that stay,
I scribble it all down when I can’t hold the photos inside anymore. And oh, wouldn’t I like to take a spoonful of you.
I write until I feel like I’m not good with words anymore,
when I’m sure I’ve lost my mind,
when I feel I can’t over think anymore.

This is the last drop from my

ocean eyes ran dry.
This is the pitter patter banter
that keeps me dancing on my tiptoes,
and singing like Tom Jones in my empty apartment.

These are my breadcrumbs.

I’m leaving them all over town.
Pick them up with me
and I’ll pen up a concerto,
a crescendo composition book
swelling with the words,
“I will write.”
I will write until the last crumb drops,
until the margins are covered up in pencil smudges,
until there is nothing left of me but my stories, my photos, my poems,
until the lights dim on the typewriter orchestra and the curtains close.

6 23
Fuckboys
Who raised these fuckboys?
Those that take but never give,
Who claim they love their mothers, yet
They disrespect their lovers?
Those that take but never give
Expect women in white to wear black lace.
They disrespect their lovers
Without a doubt in their minds.
Expect women in white to wear black lace.
Wash out the individual;
Without a doubt in their minds
A woman is made for a man.
Wash out the individual;
Hang her up to dry in shackles and chains,
Because a woman is made for a man.
Take away a woman’s self-worth.
Hang them up to dry in shackles and chains,
Because they claim to love their mothers,
Yet take away a woman’s self-worth.
Who raised these fuckboys?
22
To the Boy with the Stardust in His Eyes
Blue green galaxies of pure magnetic midnight magic
illuminate my entire sky and dance in front of my eyes and every day
I’m stargazing in a moonlit field.
Satellites and airplanes and constellations
hang from strings in the sky like balloons
I want to grasp each string and tie them to your bed frame
so you can always count stars like sheep
before the sleep sweeps you away and pulls at the night sky,
a blanket over tired eyes.
You see, you make me believe
that you are the cosmos.
The universe inside you just bursting with life
with light
with everything right.
You may feel like sometimes
you are nothing.
But to me, you
are the cosmos.
You
Are everything.
And everything you are is celestial beauty,
stellar.
My North Star
when the world feels like a scar.
I feel more constellation than star
with you
I feel
brighter than sun.
Sometimes I’m pulled down by the weight of my heart
But you keep me looking up,
rising as my sun sets and darkness comes.
You shoot across my clear night sky,
my meteor shower boy.
Remember
When we are apart
when you look up at the moon and the stars and the satellites and the airplanes
We are under the same moon.
I’m looking too,
I’m looking for you.
In moonlight
in daylight
in everything stellar and lunar and solar.
When the stars twinkle on ceiling stucco
and tuck your sleepy soul in at night,
I hope you know
how dark the sky and I would be without your light.
7
Grief Never Let Me Go
I’m dangling on the rail of a hospital bed I’m talking tooth decay sickening sweetness in our smiles,
clinging to you and the life you have left glittering eyes sprinkling starlight,
and somewhere in between hushed breaths I’m talking Bee Gee’s
and the unnerving hum of the air mattress you should be dancing
I reach my hands to yours yeaaah.
to try to heal myself and you We are nineteen and twenty somethings
but my helpless hands have no power to heal dreaming in the dark.
so they hold your hands to feel. dancing to the beats of the metronomes in our hips.
Feeling Tushes tick, tock, tick, tock twenty, thirty, sixty minutes and
too I am walking on the side of the road
much in a little black dress and a fake leather jacket,
grief. fake badass status, ignoring catcalls
in the glow of headlights bathing to moonlight.
On your D-Day I’m a weathered piece of wood I disappear into the dense fog and
washed up along the frothy shoreline. I’m dancing in my living room again.
Splinters dig into my skin with every movement, every thought. I’m holding the hem of my dress and spinning,
Just scrap wood with a scrap heart, head bobbing like I’m jumping the waves in my hair,
slamming into the shore. eyes closed, I open them to find no one around me.
The cymbal waves are your final soundtrack I am a crowded and empty room
and oh, it is heavenly as waiting for an echo to bounce back to me.
you storm up the beach like life. I am happiness with forgotten layers of lonely sadness.
You are life beyond my years, I am tipsy topsy turvy toes bouncing
you are colors of wisdom and love. on the definition of myself and
maybe if I jump around enough
All this time I thought you were bulletproof. I’ll forget my identity crisis and just be.
I thought we had more life and colors, My God, I am talking tooth decay
but the cymbals crash like bullets sickening sweetness in our smiles,
and I’m screaming white noise. my God, I am carefree,
In an instant you bleed out into my soul, my God, I wish this could be me all the time,
the albatross hangs on my heart. my friends, know that I am full of so much love
Beauty fades when I wrap my waffle hands around your syrupy sweet selves,
with gasped breaths. we are glittering eyes and Mr. Brightside and
All all my problems subside on nights like this.
your So hold me, friends, and never let me go.
beauty. never let me go.

One year later and I’m still blood stained scrap wood
screaming on the shore to the score of your waves,
“Come back,”
please
“come back.”

8 21
Storms
Some say when the rain starts,
the aching stops but
my bones said, “This is going to be rough.”
So I watched the horizon line with timid eyes,
made sure my structure was
sturdy as my mother’s backbone.
I set sandbags by my doors like
christmas cookies and milk on a fireplace
waiting up all night for the destruction,
for the tropical depression to
seize the calm and shake them restless.
I rest less in the dark where the shaking of leaves on the trees
against the house sounds like skeleton bones rattling and
this life is just one big closet full of them.
They gather, they crash ceaselessly
into my structure like waves.
The sandbags give way to the pressure and
ignore my screams to stay,
stay in place, the water’s seeping through the cracks.
The roof leaves the house like a ripped-away lover and
I look straight into the eyes of the storm,
shouting,
“I dare you.”
Lake Effect
Bright white daisy petals fall from stems in the sky and I can’t catch my baby’s
breath. Today is a fragrant bouquet wrapped in new curly-q ribbons. Everything
feels velveteen soft, satin smooth, scratchy wooly warm. Born a little-spoon lover,
cold feet under cold covers, a stealthy spy with brown eyes, I am every disguise
yet my face, my face, my face is alcohol sleepy-eyes, feeling so alive, don’t cry, I’m
here, shoelace fingers untied, a body to hold, lights on buildings and everything
that makes me wonder, I am infinite and I am finite and someday this will come to
an end and maybe it won’t and how can I predict the future when the unforeseen
became seen? They are sunshine and snow-topped evergreen trees, screaming-
crying-laughing, Animals howling, abounding emotions. I see them. Everywhere.
Dancing a floor above girls with braces, inside jokes running horse races, they
are careful contemplation, I’m a culmination of everything they are and everything
we could be. We are our own muses. We are galaxies, constellations, telescope-
worthy. Not worthless despite the sometimes-feeling of worthlessness. We wish we
could see in ourselves what we see in each other. Bright white daisy petals fall,
vintage Christmas choruses chime. One day, I’ll press these petals into the pages
that hold our souls, and lightly scrawl the feelings spilling from ink jar lips. Writing
over and over and over,
Stay.
Stay.
Stay.

They said
there’s a reason
why storms
are named
after people.

20 9
Speak of the Devil Reflecting Absence
Speak of the devil Children, too young to truly know of it,
and the devil enters. roam the memorial without feeling upset.
A cheek cut by As they stand where the two buildings were hit,
sharp poison apple the nation’s flag casts a gray silhouette
draws blood soon, on the ground, and my shoes are getting wet
draws brain soon, with waterfall tears reflecting absence.
draws dark red scenes I think of skyscrapers colliding with plane jets.
of battered broken bones The visitors smile on a sobbing slab,
and chipped chair legs. a mass murder site upon which we stand.
The children are They’re grinning while I grimace in the dew.
dreaming. Where smiling for a picture should be banned,
Baby boy, the children are not sure of what to do.
baby boy,
so much left They trace names of the dead with their fingertips,
for you to see. and a breath escapes from my burning lips.
Jesus is coming.
Oh, Lord.
Jesus is coming.
Pray for the children
with your mangled hands.
Brutal savage,
drunken massacre.
Five more to go.

Figure on a moonlit deck.

A radio screams -- untouched.
The lost and then found.

The devil drops his name

first.

10 19
The Moon Nightstand Rubble
When I was little I used to think the moon followed our car And sometimes I search for you
like it was tethered to our bumper. like this needle and thread.
It soared across states lines, You always knew how to
dipping down into the bay for a midnight swim, patch and mend and tend
always too far away to touch but close enough to my well-worn heart.
to almost feel the mist on my skin. Looking in your nightstand,
I carried it in the back of my mind the day you left could’ve been yesterday
like a balloon on a string Bottom drawer bandaids and butterfly closures
on humid, salt-water air drives back home. and all the things we would use to fix you up
Playing nurse is easier
He was my moon. when you’re shaking from shock
Now, I’m trying to fall asleep in the car, Next tier, next tear,
but it’s so bright outside. your spools of thread,
I’m staring straight into the headlights like new needles just as sharp as your wit
I’m a deer and he was mine but now was.
I’m here. Second to last drawer,
your glasses.
My distracted mind is always The frames that
looking towards the stars, always held your face for years.
trying to force myself to dig my heels I am jealous of them.
into the earth and push my toes toward the sky and Your hairbrush haunts me with
through this satellite life after he the thought that I will never
played the game of pushing me out of his orbit. brush your silver strands again.
Your baby powder holder is nearly full.
I tell myself The drawer smells like the nights
to close my eyes I held my breath when you’d
and let the turns of the road place the puff all over your body
sway me to sleep like a child in a cradle. before settling down to sleep
in the room we shared for seven years.
Maybe
I am young The top drawer is nothing
and maybe but a bag of conversation hearts.
I am always blinded by the moon.
But For all I’m concerned,
I have the freedom every one of them says,
to untie myself “MISS YOU”
from the monotonous
swinging
of eyelids open
and shut
open
and shut.

Sometimes
I remember to
let go of my youthful grasps on rusty
creaky-creak chains
and I fly
tethered to the sun
past the moon
into the daylight.

18 11
6 Things I Have Learned in the Past Week,
and Am Still Learning
1. You have to force yourself to get out of bed even if that means you solemnly
sleepwalk your way through the day. We all shake awake eventually from the
longest nightmares to realize it’s only been a few minutes.
2. You have to let yourself speak even though there’s a fire burning in your throat.
Find a friend that will give you a glass of water and a place to extinguish. Hold onto
that friend forever.
A woman
does not have to change herself for anyone BUT herself.
Sexism is rooted in the seeds of the uneducated
and feminists just try to rain down,
try to pour down,
hoping that they bring some form of equality to life,
hoping that men shed some kind of budding respect.

3. You have to allow yourself to crumble. Shake like a house on a fault line, feel Feminism is not hating men.
his faults with every tremor and convince yourself you did nothing to deserve Feminism is loving men
this natural disaster, dodge the crumbling ceiling plaster and believe that the and asking for them to return the favor.
earthquake will end and when it does -- grab a dustpan, and sweep the dust out
your door. Men like you
demand to be ignorant,
4. You have to allow yourself to smile. It will feel like anchors are hanging from the passive.
corners of your lips with each sinking heartbeat but if something makes you smile, Men like you
detach the anchors and set sail into happy, because rough seas have to calm are why women across the globe are struggling.
eventually and tomorrow is a low tide, sunny, and calm day.
I am just asking
5. You have to control how much you remember. When remembering comes in for a little perspective.
waves, swim back to shore when the surfers arrive. Remember in ripples rather
than whirlpools because they will pull you so far underwater you won’t be able to I am asking
see light anymore. for all women
to feel unabashedly
6. You have to accept compliments like letters from a pen pal. Run to the mailbox human.
barefoot like you used to do in the summer and feel the hot cement under your toes
and step around the dandelions to avoid the bees. Revel in comfort holding the
warm envelope between your hands like a prayer. Thank God you can still feel it
there.

12 17
To the Occasional Misogynist, From the Letters in July
Occasional Angry Feminist Dear brother,
So much time has passed since we last spent two weeks together
There are many things I regret about our relationship, as a family in the summer sun.
but one thing on my mind today, We’ve had a devastating breakup each and
one thing I regret that I neglected to challenge our hearts ache to avoid them.
was the fact that you, You moved to New York City
you do not know about the universe as much as you think you do.
and I went to college.
Your opinion does not change the way men treat women and
We’ve lost our favorite grandmother
you are part of the problem.
See, and I sometimes wonder if it bothers you
in your pleading paragraphs of shoveled out excuses as much as it still bothers me.
and invalid interpretations,
you somehow manage to show just how much women need feminism I’m sitting in the car watching the trees and clouds pass like spin art.
trying to disguise sexism as subjective standards. It may be the last year I can vacation for two weeks.

You used to tell me the same story. Brother, I am so against getting older.
Forgetting that I already knew I still sleep with stuffed animals
I humored you. and I get sweaty calling doctors’ offices.
When you complained that I’m finally learning to drive.
a class full of women made you feel inferior, Adults are asking me what I want to do with my life,
made you hate the idea of “intercultural communication”, pushing me in directions I have no desire to be lead.
made you feel self conscious and defensive about being a man. I’d like to think that I end up like you,
living where I want to live,
I bit my lip every time you retold me. loving someone so much better than the previous love,
Did you think repetition would finding inspiration in the skyline.
convince me that you,
oh poor you
Our parents allow us to live.
were wronged?
Sometimes I try to tell them
Imagine that I see myself living where you are.
every day Western Pennsylvania is too small for me and
of your life. I wonder if anyone else sees that
our parents raised big dreamers,
Imagine the struggle of the working woman trying to be seen as a boss wandering souls looking for happiness
instead of a bitch. in the spinning of a tire,
Imagine the pain of a tattooed woman in the twirl of a propeller.
constantly scratched by the needle of “you are not going to find love looking like I hope we’re on our way.
that”. I hope we’re there.
Imagine sleeping with someone once and getting called a slut,
while a man that gets around is a praiseworthy player. Dear brother,
Imagine being afraid of walking to your car at night I hope so many things for us.
keys between the spaces in your fingers, eyes darting, head turning, panic. I hope you’re hoping too.
Imagine a woman that was raped hearing that she was asking for it,
That a short skirt in the summer just begged for a rapist,
just begged for it,
just begged for the worst night of her entire life,
just begged for death.

16 13
Showering in Sunglasses October 12, 1998
If I shower with sunglasses on, would I feel cooler? I can almost hear the
Would I turn into Slim Shady? screaming. A torturous, thorny
Get it, because I’m slim wail with every crushing blow.
and that’d definitely be shady. The biker thought
Or even more so, what if I he was a scarecrow;
showered with sunglasses in the shade? Arms spread wide like
Like an outdoor shower under a tree Jesus on the cross,
Don’t mess with me, straw stuffing strewn about,
I’m slim shady showerin’ under a tree a face painted in thick red with
So shady, it’d be a secret shower a single tear-track like
that I probably shouldn’t use, God Himself wept for redemption,
but you can’t tell me what to do for clarity for those
cause’ what’s cooler than being cool? that spit poisoned holy water and
Showering in sunglasses. wrap praying hands into
And you don’t need to ask me to please stand up furious fists of misunderstanding.
because I’d already be standing,
get it? The boy didn’t have to die
Jokes. for his “sin” of loving, of loving,
Unless you sit in the shower oh God, he was loving.
Which is really strange, Twenty-one years of loving,
unless you’re really sleepy, damned for the “sin” and plagued by the
then have a seat man pain of those that let fear become hate,
life’s too short. a human undeserving of the fate of
Showerin’ slim shady’s wearing shades in the shower a slaughter, beaten to a pulp in a prairie,
in the summertime shade of the trees, tied to a fence and left like roadkill.
sitting or standing in the haze, Inhumane humans martyr those for
the fog steamin up my shades. whom they choose to love.
Just kiddin’, it’s from the heat God weeps
from the thought of your body. to clear the blood.
Slim shady, she’s naughty, Saint Veronica
ya caught me, so shady, shady thoughts wipes the dirt away.
shady trees, shady Spotts I can almost hear the
115 silence.
Poetry club. The calm of the
coma.
The flatline.

Sixteen years later, we’re

not going to stand for the
stages of the cross.

14 15