Less than the sums of rising sun
scattered across heartfelt millennial,
new dawns to strip the teeth from
bloody gums and the blistered knuckles from
bloody faces.A fist is so much less
than purple puckered lips,
drained from blue veins in an abandoned
freer state.The nation is a pink light on the ice,
and if she dies this morning,
it will not be with the sighs for all her coming
days,
root canals and bursting barfights,
southern summers on drowning coastlines,
but with the worn-through eyes of a pierced vein.She will not use the blade he gave her
on a soft Christmas morning while her bruises pulsed
and her teeth ached
and they watched the endless sunlight.She will use the northern snow,
and the time between someone noticing a flash of red,
a hearty scream,
and the time it takes to discover
a unmarked person in a serene niche
who doesn’t wish to be found.
last winter’s sky was endless and low
(where there’s infinite space is where words will not go)we made sugar cookies like snowmen and bells
and a strange little beast that no one could name
that could have been from any number of heavens or hells
(i said could it be jesus and choked on my shame)
sugar bells between my teeth
frosted angels on my lips
+ his hands on my hips
+ his hands on my hips
his mouth never found its way to mine
(the words that don’t matter are the ones that won’t rhyme)
& i’m done & i’m done i’m done taking my timethis time last year i was twisted and spent:
i was who he talked to but not who he dreamt
he whispered my name but it was not what he meant.iced-over ponds seeped into my skin
i was too thin,
too thin to think.
last year he skated over my bruises
and then let me sink.
the lights are coming on in the center of town
and the santaclaus men are unpinning their frowns
and i’m eating my food and i’m keeping it down& here’s to
& cheers toletting me drown.
Wow is an understatement. Unbelievable.
We were fresh faced kids once.
You told me you could show me magic
And painted entire worlds with your imagination
In just 15 minutes.
Until the bell tolled and the forest
Ceased to be a kingdom
And then we sat in classrooms
And when they asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up,
You said, “a poet.”
They told you that would never make you a living
But you replied you didn’t want to make a living,
You wanted to make a life.
Though you didn’t realize how hard it was
To have a life when you couldn’t afford groceries.
Or harder still,
When no one wanted to listen.
Because you listened to everything.
You sat in the rain for hours
Imagining each drop had a story
Until your mother screamed at you to come in.
And you wondered why everyone was so scared to get a little wet.
So you dove into everything.
In between sheets of strangers
And into the hearts of girls who would never love you
Because they didn’t even love themselves.
Into the minds of boys who could only ever love an ideal
That you could never be.
And that was when you started to dive
Into the bottom of a bottle.
And you found it hard to come up for air
Without an artificial high to lift you.
When everyone said, “that’s life.”
You just shook your head and said, “it doesn’t have to be.”
But the homeless woman on the corner begged to differ.
And the industrial smoke stacks told you otherwise.
And the boy beaten to death for a kiss
Confirmed your worst fears
So each night you released those fears
With a slash on each wrist,
Because that was the only poetry
Your body had left to give.
And one night you died
(because you always dove too deep)
Broken trying to break through the mould,
Wishing you’d said you wanted to be a teacher.
And the only masterpiece you left behind,
Was a bloody sheet and a note that said:
“Red is such a beautiful colour.”
Amazing
“what is your emergency?”
I need this to be the last time
you’re gonna make a car crash out of me.
I don’t wanna see your eyes again
like broken headlights coming straight at me.
I don’t want you to end up broken glass again.Promise me. Promise me you’re done
trying to make me understand why you have an
empty beer bottle, burnt love letters, real horrorwshow
kind of heart. I understand.I understand you want to heart-attack yourself
into company. I understand you want to be that
urgent; you wanna be that phonecall in the middle
of the night that gets everyone out of bed;
you wanna be a hospital room full of people
telling you they should have visited, they should have
sent a card, they should have invited you to Christmas.I understand, but I cannot keep being the means
by which you do these things.
My body is not an apartment building you can keep
climbing from the inside only to throw yourself
from the roof. My hands are not cigarettes
you can keep using to give yourself scars.I want to know you think me more than that.
I want to know my love is not a switchblade
you are using to cut yourself open.I have watched you sleeping-pill yourself into
half a dozen comas and bleed yourself into
overnight transfusions but I am done letting you use me
as a house fire that you run into for warmth
and are pulled out of on a gurney.I don’t know when I let you make a 999 call out of me,
but that is not what love is. Love is not just another way
for you to destroy yourself.I will not be your suicide.
Side note: Far too beautiful not to re-blog, an accomplished poet and even her prose is brilliant. I feel this.
His lips sought mine in the darkness and he found my wrists that glittered with mercury. It was poisoning my bloodstream until he pulled my soft lips from the blind waters where I had been drowning. He ripped the hazy thoughts from my mind after he grabbed the bottles from my hands. We sat in our salt-stained remains, waiting for the end of beauty to come while the waves crashed before our fearful forms. From the fear came lightning eyes and electric words, clashing from tongue to tears. We held on to nothing but the rocks that would drag us into our deepest dreams.
Somewhere along the agony, the screaming, we found each other. The love we experienced would let him touch the sun one day, then dash him into ash on the next. We spun into existence and then right back out, finding each other on the sides of highways, watching the people pass much like Clarisse had. I ventured out farther than the smudged yellows and peeling billboards, only to be held back with his iron hands. It was a force that even he could not resist, the desperation to hold me from the imminent obliteration for just a moment longer.
Our love blossomed into the greatest tree when it was still a part of life, before it had become connected to our souls and wound us together in the sky. It dug its roots deep into the soil of nights in the movies and across parking lots where I saw his face in the shadows and claimed him as mine. We watched the rains travel so swiftly along our pulsing, fluttering beings but did not cry out when the rain fell, for we knew the rivers would separate as our destiny cut its path into both of our hearts.
The finish was planned in bathtubs stained red and lipstick running as goosebumps climbed along his mole-mapped back. It was a kind of destruction that kicked up storms and shook mountains. We were not lifeless, for we had become the effluent waters that of which we could sail upon with our dying whispers to be carried in the breeze. It was a beautiful ending, for it never closed like our ever-open marbles which glinted dangerously inside our skulls. There were two separate finishes, though, both of us at peace with nothing and we were still existing in the bare clouds that would never let go of their heaving worries.
I went before him, which was the only thing that brought honest color to his eyes, showing him that the darkness was just the nonexistence of light, of worry, of wonder. I knew the cracking and splintering air was due to his bellows as he stumbled along the chartreuse towels and the bloody bath that sucked my energy away. Finally I could taste the rain on my lips, finally I was a dying mist that would find the sea.
Little did I know, he was coming after me.
She said to me, “do you know who I am?”
I honestly didn’t. Not a single clue.
“you slept with my fiancé,” she said.
I gave her an honest apology, I did not know. I never wanted to, that night many months ago. So much of me ripped at my heart that night. I left all sense behind, because the next…
