side note: i feel this.
Pale black sunrises greet my eyes these mornings past, since your laugh has faded so too have the hues that permeate my sight. Remember when the air was alive with our laughter? How the hours lit up while we filled them with chatter? Was it a reflection I thought I saw? Writing that you erased off the wall? Scattered in-between the fallen leaves were our memories but they don’t seem important there, just smears on a sliding glass door.
I had a weird realization, just now. With Spilled Ink retired, Burning Muse is now one of the older reblog projects. When I created Burning Muse, I had no idea how long the project would last. I was honored that we receive the support of Spilled Ink. I was touched that veteran rebloggers likepoeticallyprofound took the time to endorse us. I was thrilled when editors likeJen followed and mentioned us!
There are so many others, include every one of you wonderful folks who follows this blog. As well as the lovely staff of Burning Muse, and the brilliant co-editor Kat.
I want to say thatBurning Musewill always support and cooperate with our fellow reblog blogs, remain devoted to our readers, and the writers who share their incredible work with the TWC day after day.
We will never forget the kindness and support we’ve been show. In response to that gratitude:
I’d like to ask the admins of other reblog blogs if they would be open to making a commitment with us, to keep the legacy of Spilled Ink alive by tracking #spilledink (for poetry) and #spilledinkprose (for prose), and making it known to the TWC that you’re pulling from those tags.
Burning Muse will always track #spilledink and #spilledinkprose in gratitude and remembrance of one of the original reblog projects.
Much love!
Of course we’ll support!
Side note: Occasionally there are things that pop up on my dash that leave me speechless until all I can do is sigh and think ‘damn, I wish I’d written that’ - this is one of those pieces.
I don’t really want to be your friend or your significant other or your lover. I just want to look at your face for hours and memorize how it all fits together. I want to etch into my brain how your lips move when you laugh, frown, and sigh. I want to watch how the light dances across your pupils, how all the colors of the world swirl around your irises. Then I want and go home and write about it for the rest of my life. I don’t want to ruin any of that by pressing my lips against yours. I could have a thousand, a million, a trillion kisses in my life but none of them would compare to the unbiased memory of your face. Memory of affection taints everything. It makes things larger, uglier, smaller, prettier. I just want to remember you like this, until the world burns down, until there is nothing left of either of us but the feeling of your face floating in the wind—haunting the universe for eternity with the whisper of your beauty.
Which means you can take 20% off my book with the code: CITHARA20
I also lowered the price on paperback, so it’s an even better deal. (it’s available in ebook and hardcover too)
side note: sigh, this…i love her writing.
i slipped; i got lost wandering in a hurricane and found myself in a torpedo. there was teeth marks on shoulders that were already bruised from this burden, there was scars on wrists and thighs and i thought i saw blood that i believed dried the last time i let these eyes close. there was wounds on thighs and aggressive moons tormenting dreams of lucid quality.
were you watching? the pools of tears and the smiles that lost their silvery shine. the rains that took us far away as i begged to go home because there is no place like it. the anger that decorated these pupils in dilated fashions as i was asked to describe the clothes that led to the ‘incident’, the lipstick that tortured my torturer and the way we died in the aftermath.
there was a silence inbetween each second that fell past, and that was where i went missing.
side note: absolutely stunning imagery.
I miss turquoise earrings that that fall between twists of elegant silver, pieces of sky caught in a spider’s web. I miss intricate flowervines and peacock feathers in a forest of scarlet, painted on alabaster palms. I miss the noise of the streets, a thousand tobacco-stained tongues that let rivers of words and syllables flow between the dams of their lips, I miss mogra woven into knitted raven locks, I miss chocolate skin and ebony eyes and home, home, the only place I called a home.
side note: i feel this.
We fell with the rain, dropping ourselves from tree branches into the ocean, crashing to our knees in the driveway of my parent’s house. We were searching for hope in the spaces between our fingers and found it in the cracks in the sky, in the shadows of each other’s eyes.
There was a boy who liked to play make-believe because he wanted to escape his tragic realities. He’d pretend to be a handsome prince with a beautiful princess. He’d pretend to be a millionaire who could afford anything. He’d pretend to be a doctor who saved lives. He played all sorts of roles as a child. But when he grew up he became a writer. A writer who wrote all his fantasies and made himself different characters. He made lots of friends wearing the shoes of those characters and shed them as he untied those laces on his feet. During his journey, he found a friend who he fell in love with. She fell for him too despite knowing his lies and the characters he’s been playing. He’s been uncovered for the fraud he really is many times before. He was the boy who cried wolf. But they were happy together, they were in bliss. If anyone knew the real him despite the false facades, it would have been her. But life would always have its way and it tore them apart. He was left a broken shell of a man when she was gone. Her existence alone could make him happy. He found joy in her name and in her laugh and in her sweet, charming ways. He started lashing out his anger and pain at everyone. And then he found another girl to deceive. She too was aware of his history but she fell for him anyway. He made sure of that with the way he pursued her. When she was tightly wound around his finger, he started getting uncomfortable because he knew in his heart he still loved the girl who first claimed his heart. So he started to unwind the other girl from him. It was hard work. But he succeeded anyway. He succeeded in everything he did except covering up his true nature. The new girl was left to grieve over him and the depth of his lies she was able to uncover. She decided to try to warn others of this boy like so many others who tricks people into caring for someone that isn’t real. So she wrote a warning without exposing him but as always the truth finds a way to reveal itself and he was found out once again. He started receiving hate mail and his first love witnessed all of it and decided to step in. So now they are building the bridge they once burned. Only life can determine if they will finally give this boy his happy ending in his own story without the need of playing a character. Only life can determine what this boy deserves.
But I hope with all my heart that life will be kind. After all everyone deserves chances. And because if there’s anything the world needs right now, it is happiness and hope. And lastly, I hope the boy doesn’t screw up his second chance to be with his one true love because he would never know if life will be kind enough to give him another chance after that.
And yes, the narrator of this story is the new girl.
Side Note: This is the piece that must be read.
Love is war, they tell you, and you comfort yourself with the thought that love is between you and someone you kiss on New Years Eve, and fuck in the stifled silence against the wall outside your parents church, and lie to on those Saturday nights when you’re going out with friends who don’t like them and refuse to give them an inch of space to make a mistake. Love is between you and that someone who breaks a knee to have you as theirs, and breaks a back sleeping with a lover ten years younger than you somewhere down the road. But I have badges for wounds that haven’t healed yet, draw bloodied lines and shrapnel pieces embedded in my bones from when friends burnt my flag, chanting my death with tongues that hold my secrets and my weaknesses, and every last tear that they lapped up, promising and swearing on a book I thought meant something within a sheet fort of youth and beneath flickering lights of a thunder storm. I have gauze strapped over pink and bloodied burns, from the nights that those with the title family lit the floors beneath me on fire, shattering molotov’s through second story windows in search of my screams of surrender to ease them to sleep on the bed of my defeat, and to watch me throw myself from the highest balconies, seeking safety in the arms of the stars. There’s aches of where organs used to be, scars where unskilled hands cut and dug around in hopes of finding the internal bleed and contuse it with their wishful thinking, but I’m drowning still, and I’m waiting for the copper taste to flood the back of my teeth and splutter from my lips. It’s a matter of time, and there’s a red blinking dot rested upon my forehead, holding for the cue.
Love is war, they tell you, but they don’t warn you that everyone you meet can be an enemy (and that they probably are).
side note: because every woman, despite their size can identify with this. i think it defines insecurity beautifully in a heartfelt way that i can’t help but feel inside.
She’s the girl who goes for long walks in the hot sun just to sweat a little more. She wants to run, but her knees hurt from carrying her weight. So she walks at a brisk pace, listening to music. She has a strong heart. It’s bruised, but it’s healthy.
She’s the girl that hides from mirrors. She hates to walk a city street when the sun is high and warped reflections are at their peak. This one makes her look shorter. This one makes her look wider. It’s hard to know the truth, when every reflection tells a lie.
She’s the girl that doesn’t like to eat in public. Because, it doesn’t matter whether it is her first meal of the day or her last. All the world will see, is another “big girl” eating. And, “Hasn’t she had enough to eat?”
She’s the girl that shops in plus sized stores, where they changed the sizing system, so a size 12 is a “0” and she can ask for a size “2” just to know what smaller numbers taste like. She’s not fooled. She knows the truth of it all, it’s just that, small numbers taste good.
She’s the girl that watches what she eats and regrets every single bite she deems unhealthy. She eats and she regrets. She thinks about purging, but that’s not healthy. She’s trying to be healthy.
She’s the girl with love built into her bones. She nurtures, she cares. She will be there for you at 6 o’clock in the morning, or 12 o’clock at night. She’s loyal. She has feelings. She hurts. She laughs. She cries. She has a career. She never holds back her affection. She gives warm hugs and gentle kisses. She just wants to be loved.
It will take everything that she has to get herself up and out of her house. She will try on several outfits until she finds the one that is most flattering for her figure. She will accentuate her best curves. She will attempt to hide the rest. She will put on her best smile and tell herself that there is nothing wrong with her. She will wear as much confidence as she can muster, despite the screaming insults of her own insecurity.
She’s the girl who’s trying. She’s the girl who’s doing the best she can.
