falling—

together~

Apart

broken:

fixed?

want/need

(not here)

oblivion. 

Thoughts of the Deceased 

Worried glances between them
They whispered
She won't make it through the night

I was tired
Tired and aching
Burning chills
Overtaken 
Wracking pain with each labored breath
Every tear of mine
Reflected in their tender eyes

And for the first time in weeks I dreamed
A tall figure, clad in a cloak the color of darkness
Reached out a bony hand
I took it, unafraid
Cool relief

They whispered before
Now they are distraught when they come to see me
Hoarse, muffled voices screaming my name 
I can't see them anymore - can only see darkness, and it's cold, but-
The cold is comfort, strong wood against solid earth and
Though it hurts to hear them missing me
I am finally at peace.

--- 

Thoughts? Kinda prose-y, but I like it. 

title tbd

i want to see you & the parts you keep hidden. i want to be seen

to sit on a table feeling so small while you gently dissect my heart & stitch it back together again with a piece of you inside

become the very essence of vulnerability & be okay with it

i want to be unselfish. to listen without saying a word

to really truly hear you. 

if i could i’d go back in time as an observer. crossexamine every piece of a nonexistent us

& our history & our silence & our hurts

start from the very beginning & fix them in watercolor washes of pink & green & every other color in the world

paint us over in beautiful. every bruise & bloody spot pressed gently to my salt-soaked lips

we would ache together & it would hurt so good. i miss what we never had

.

i wish i could see possibility 

& picture myself perfect for the one where we were forever

study every detail of the love we never had & wish for it until it became real

i'd replicate my dream-self; become her

say all the right things & make all the right choices because she told me to

our blood would run red rose petals & the scent of iron & our bruises would flower daily, brilliantly purple like morning glories in the sun

our broken would be beautiful beautiful beautiful & i would magnify it. replay all our best worst moments in my head & love you forever & ever & ever 

.

forever is a thought i have all the time & i'll never get over it at this rate

did you ever think about how we could have been so happy? if i could i would do everything again to make it so

take glory in the grief because at least we would be there for each other. at least you would hold my heart in your hands & see it

make so much more sense out of it than i ever could. 

~~~

title ideas?? 

Not too sure if the first stanza makes sense... critiques (for the whole poem) are encouraged, as long as they're constructive! 

~

Why can't it work when you wish on a star?

(Maybe it does, but it hasn't so far.)

Why can't the universe get it 

And set it

In action

A fraction of what I have paid.

The star keeps on glaring in mind and night black,

And I cannot find enough strength to stare back

 

Everything looks like a phantom now, after

An omen - black hellhound, shrewd crow on the rafter.

 

Permanance ripped from the mess of the earth

Like the once-tasty lollipop's sweetness and worth.

Like the warmth of a fire

(From a funeral pyre)

Like the sun through the flowers

(On a coffin's closed covers).

Was "beauty" once more than a fleeting ideal,

That's been forged and distorted, though truly unreal?

 

Everything looks like a phantom now, after

An omen - grey feathers, cracked lantern, fake laughter.

 

Petals tear fast from the mourners' boquets,

Mingling with teardrops

And rot

And decay.

Flying away with the once-vivid hopes

That never will happen, not now.

 

Everything looks like a phantom now, after

An omen of death, of incoming disaster.

Phantom, no more than a stone memorandum.

A star wish can't help you. You're dead. 

Why

The little star thinks

Should I 

Be bothered

To make your wish come true?

Why

Would I,

With no legs or arms or tongue

Be any closer to touching

What you desire and chase after?

Why,

Millions of miles away from all your dreams,

Am I responsible for granting

Something that was never mine to gift? 

And even if I could,

What have you ever done for me

To so incline me to give free favours?

Don't turn to me,

Bright as I may be, to solve all your problems for you. 

this originally just ended with the daffodils and then i somehow added a more depressing ending and idk if i like it! feedback would be nice <3

A Tale of Two Graveyards

i. The newspapers, perhaps as a last hurrah, seem to sometimes forget the news.

And instead fill the front page with the stony face of a woman-turned-angel-turned-legend,

Just for dying with enough money (and, I suppose, love) to encapsulate such a holy form,

As to look down on generations unable to forget her, as they

Walk the manicured lawn for the loved ones still imagining they are walking with ghosts,

Setting each grave with fresh flowers so bright that one might forget death was ever so real.

ii. I never noticed the second cemetery.

The childhood years I walked from my house to my grandparents’

Unaware of the way the perfect uniformity of suburbia I lived in

Was broken by layers of things much uglier lying underneath.

The sign that says “Historical Graveyard, 1838-1883” tells of no tantalizing secrets,

No hauntings and everlasting stories.

These graves are not marked

Save for the white painted bits of wood haphazardly stuck in the unmonumental ground,

Hardly scraps, hardly fitting to the memory of a life.

The living trees around them better represent them.

Stoically existing, unappreciated and so very necessary.

Whoever rests here- and I cannot know who, really- came before us.

Whoever rests here deserves more than a lime green trash can being the brightest color in the whole lot

And plastic water bottles which will be here when their “grave markers” decompose,

And that mysterious tree which litters its soggy, wrinkled fruits on the ground with no one to eat them.

And yet, there were daffodils in this graveyard last spring,

The bright yellow, so happy, almost cartoonish among the dead branches.

I think, that is beautiful, symbolic, poetic even

But then again I am only searching for bits of story in this strange, cruel world

And who am I to think flowers could help with all they endured? 

help why am i like this :,)

~ 

ten thirty interlude #1

i'm not over you

oh my gosh; i saw you last night at a party & when you wrapped your arms around me in greeting i think my heart broke itself into thousands of pieces and then fused itself together again in the warmth of your embrace

the fissures lined in decaying gold

oh my gosh; you made my heart fall out of my chest & yet it meant nothing

i'm not over you but i really need to be

& it's not fair that you don't know. but heartbreak isn't fair & love isn't fair & i will keep trying to sit next to you

for the adrenaline every time you brush your shoulder against mine

i keep wishing you do it on purpose and oh my god it's tearing me apart love

(i can't even call you that; it would be too true)

i'm not over you & sometimes i really wish i was but others

i wouldn't trade this feeling for the world

flying & floating & falling all at the same time is what you are. is this what it's like to be in love

god help me stop feeling it i can't i can't i can't i

can't

get over you

& it hurts so much 

& i 

can't

stop

to breathe 

whisper in my ear once more,

quiet, secrets only we know and understand

and I do, still

understand things that no one will feel

they’ll never be just like us

do you still understand?

our jokes, our thoughts, our futures

we always believed were intertwined

we would live each day together

until we would pass in each other’s arms

they tell me I should move on

i’m holding onto a balloon

it’s going to pop, into a million

rubber shards of pain

anyway, so why don’t you

be happy again?

You’ll be fine

 

Happy is smiling because you have someone

Happy is knowing you’ll never die because

You have someone to hold and to remember

Happy, happiness, happily

Ever after

Sealing a fairy-tale bliss

Of a storybook, slammed shut

I’m almost glad

My fate isn’t set in stone

Maybe one day

Me?

I don’t have happy

Do you?

So, I guess I’m still holding on

To things that are dead and gone

6 feet under,

Can you hear me or not?

Even if you did, 

You’ll never answer

Funny how death goes

You forget about them

And when you reach to the phone

To place a call

The number will never be filled

With their voice again

I’m here at your grave,

Beautiful, blooming wildflowers grow over the headstone

The words are faded away into the carved marble,

Your name engraved through the cracks

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Friends have moved, families have split, people have joined you in your

Intouchable, ageless land

I haven’t yet

Is that a blessing or a double edged curse?

You’ll never see me, and I’ll never see you

Until my timely clock breaks down and I will be lowered

Into the dark earth,

Where all the forgotten dwell,

Like you

Standing here, in the morning sun

I feel

Regret

Loneliness

Pain

The sun is casting warm rays of light

And my tears are falling

I never had the chance to ask you what your favourite movie was

I never had the chance to ask about your middle school crush

I never had the chance to really know you

Isn’t first love so bittersweet?

We lived life like it was our last day on earth

To the fullest

Never enough still,

The minutes were ours to steal away

I sometimes wonder

If, when the car hit

The ditch, skidding away,

In those precious moments,

Did you think of me too?

Did you think of me the way when I first saw you,

Dark eyes, smile that could light up the whole world,

Snatching my heart with a fell swoop

Prince of thieves, master of spoken words,

Weaving them effortlessly into a tangle of infatuation

With a simple

“Hi.”

My breath quickening,

My face flushing

Every nerve alight in imprudent joy

My mind knowing, above all

I was yours

Forever

Perfect lies I tell myself every night

Smiling to my friends,

“Oh, so sad”

They don’t know what I think

They don’t know at all

First love is fleeting

I don’t think I’ll ever

Hurt this way

Feel this way

Isn’t that lucky?

The pain is worse

On the first

At least I’ll never hurt

Inside again, smash open

A porcelain doll,

Painted on smile

Jerky movements in front of the stage

Don’t stumble or they’ll see

I can’t break when I’m already broken

Every night,

Screaming into my pillow, seeing a ghost

A pale apparition, a spirit

Next to me, with your smile

And eyes, deep as pools of midnight

Telling me I wasn’t enough for you

I didn’t care enough

I didn’t talk enough

I wasn’t perfect

Words left unsaid, choking my breath

I can’t breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

In

Out

In

Out

I wish I could’ve been more

I wish I could’ve done more

But when it fades through your fingertips,

No matter of grasping can pull the pieces of your life

Back together

Say your goodbyes and i-love-you’s

Say your apologies before they leave

After a fight, place a call, not a second later

Ask that one person what you’ve been meaning to say

Don’t let silence stun you

Those you value may not be there tomorrow to hear

“I’ll try again the next day.”

What if there isn’t?

Regret is my friend, my constant shadow

You can’t rest your eyes without your mind

Flickering with what could have been

If I had only the courage

To ask

Who knows what we could be

Who knows?

Surely not anyone but the fates

And their lips are silent, telling us in dreams and fantasies

He loved me, he loved me not

Not

That I’d ever know

Though

Maybe

You

Could’ve

Been
Mine

Too

 

Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! I'm not super happy about how this one came out, but it was for a class assignment on emotional poetry. Sorry if this is too long, @Admins!

this is what hope feels like

sunset colors--

exploding purples and reds and golds, like the sky is on fire, like some great cosmic artist decided to go kandinsky

the smell of vanilla ice cream in blue-patterned bowls, eaten on the back porch in late june, & the way hot tea feels in winter-stiff hands

dancing without caring who is watching, like the birds & children do (don't take yourself too seriously to dance the foxtrot, alfred)

feeling like you're flying on the back of the wind, over mountaintops and rivers

the difference between a full-color portrait and a sepia photograph -- life in technicolor, like that song i haven't heard

the glittering taste of sprite mixed with lemonade & laughter, the feeling of warm silk sheets after running ten miles in the rain

the sound of raindrops on a roof, watching old black-and-white comedies with your best friends under quilts and pillows, fingers wrapped around mugs of too-bitter homemade hot chocolate with cocoa dripping down the sides

lying on the summer-green grass and looking at the vast blue sky and the fantastic shapes the wind makes of the clouds, drinking sunlight

gathered 'round a campfire, toasting marshmallows, catching fireflies & watching flying fire

feeling as though you have swallowed something bigger than yourself, an elixir of immortality (side effects include growing wings and inordinate amounts of hope)

everything is made of gold and silver and brighter colors with no name; the color of the sunset, and of hope, and of that nameless perfect feeling one gets when walking in the woods, if you're sam beaver, or looking at the stars, if you're blue sargent, or searching for dead welsh kings, if you're richard campbell gansey the third

or, if you're me, making friends and stories and discovering that you have wings, after all

i think everyone has felt this, at some point in their life; waldensamkeit, agape --

to be hopeful when the world is terrible and tragic -- it's not self-delusion, but rather bravery; to believe that one day you will find your way out of that colorless castle, one day you will find your blue,

even just for one perfect cerulean moment.

and somewhere you'll find the strength to keep on keepin' on,

despite all the anxiety and hatred and anger and despair and death and life -- because that is impossible,

and that is what we do.

----

"Alfred takes himself too seriously to dance the foxtrot." -- Downton Abbey

"She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars." -- The Raven Boys