One loose-limbed phrase
and
the light
shifted.
For a moment,
strange shadows touched a face
that was not yours –
a face too rough,
sculpted, fast, as if by thumbs
and teeth.
I woke up
choking
on the rasp of sugar in my throat –
the crawling
of unfamiliar sheets
on unfamiliar skin.
Through the blinds,
a pastel sky – the grease of it
running in the streets,
the sun
coming up staccato.
A rustle from behind –
a faceless mass emerging –
a pair of words, a soft
touch –
the rising
black –
I have never felt so homeless,
lost to the buzzing sunshine.
My face bloomed with freckles like a poppy field.
The blackberries glutted and I ravished them –
gorging, cublike,
with dirt beneath my ragged fingernails.
I couldn't help but taste it:
iron and almonds, herbs unknown,
sunbaked,
simmering.
The heat was a choir, a glory –
my skin effervesced in praise.
i have no froth upon my lips –
my ribs, unbruised, curl soft
beneath my milkfat.
evenings, skimming cream
until it sours – i read Plath
and linger at the oven.
yes.
you're the moon and i'm the sea -
i paint your portrait on my skin,
my mocking mirrored canvas -
seething, swaying.
your craters
tear to tatters in my depths.
i'm on the wrong side of sunrise.
five a.m. and i'm clutching at straws
and porcelain tiles,
convulsing at the bathroom sink.
i'm rabid -
a gray-matter froth on my lips,
a clawing at the inside of my skull.
i'm romanticising.
if i were truly tragic,
i might be worth something.
i wish i could be Hemingway,
and make my demons sing for me.
they haven't sung in years.
quiet specters,
bearing witness to my brain devouring itself.
i sleep in fits and starts,
dawn to noon -
i dream so rarely.
i feel
as though i should feel something.
i ride the waves.
i shove my way through a crowd of faceless ghosts.
they whisper to me -
they hiss that i have
letter to a little me .:reprise:. by LeahShae, literature
Literature
letter to a little me .:reprise:.
have some hard-won lessons:
1. things are hard, but here's the kicker -
everyone is just as imperfect as you are.
2. yes, you do have demons.
make friends with them. this way,
when they start causing trouble,
you can say "oh, honey, be a lamb,"
and send them out on errands for a while.
3. you will give your heart out freely
and unabashed.
sometimes you will have it politely returned.
sometimes you will have it set on fire.
always
you will heal.
never lose this capacity for implicit trust.
because after all -
the people that matter will crawl inside your skin
and treat it like their own.
4. here's the big secret -
your purpose in life is t
One loose-limbed phrase
and
the light
shifted.
For a moment,
strange shadows touched a face
that was not yours –
a face too rough,
sculpted, fast, as if by thumbs
and teeth.
I woke up
choking
on the rasp of sugar in my throat –
the crawling
of unfamiliar sheets
on unfamiliar skin.
Through the blinds,
a pastel sky – the grease of it
running in the streets,
the sun
coming up staccato.
A rustle from behind –
a faceless mass emerging –
a pair of words, a soft
touch –
the rising
black –
I have never felt so homeless,
lost to the buzzing sunshine.
My face bloomed with freckles like a poppy field.
The blackberries glutted and I ravished them –
gorging, cublike,
with dirt beneath my ragged fingernails.
I couldn't help but taste it:
iron and almonds, herbs unknown,
sunbaked,
simmering.
The heat was a choir, a glory –
my skin effervesced in praise.
i have no froth upon my lips –
my ribs, unbruised, curl soft
beneath my milkfat.
evenings, skimming cream
until it sours – i read Plath
and linger at the oven.
yes.
you're the moon and i'm the sea -
i paint your portrait on my skin,
my mocking mirrored canvas -
seething, swaying.
your craters
tear to tatters in my depths.
i'm on the wrong side of sunrise.
five a.m. and i'm clutching at straws
and porcelain tiles,
convulsing at the bathroom sink.
i'm rabid -
a gray-matter froth on my lips,
a clawing at the inside of my skull.
i'm romanticising.
if i were truly tragic,
i might be worth something.
i wish i could be Hemingway,
and make my demons sing for me.
they haven't sung in years.
quiet specters,
bearing witness to my brain devouring itself.
i sleep in fits and starts,
dawn to noon -
i dream so rarely.
i feel
as though i should feel something.
i ride the waves.
i shove my way through a crowd of faceless ghosts.
they whisper to me -
they hiss that i have
letter to a little me .:reprise:. by LeahShae, literature
Literature
letter to a little me .:reprise:.
have some hard-won lessons:
1. things are hard, but here's the kicker -
everyone is just as imperfect as you are.
2. yes, you do have demons.
make friends with them. this way,
when they start causing trouble,
you can say "oh, honey, be a lamb,"
and send them out on errands for a while.
3. you will give your heart out freely
and unabashed.
sometimes you will have it politely returned.
sometimes you will have it set on fire.
always
you will heal.
never lose this capacity for implicit trust.
because after all -
the people that matter will crawl inside your skin
and treat it like their own.
4. here's the big secret -
your purpose in life is t
I can't get the formations out of my head by KaitForest, literature
Literature
I can't get the formations out of my head
I find myself five months deep
in a wild wood. I make sacrifice with
my teeth, ripping skin, draining blood
leaving corpses upside down
on boughs
as I come upon them. how have they
traveled this far without fighting?
it grows darker and I meaner.
March unfolds April unfolds May,
the light lingers longer but does not
penetrate, and I materialize a
twisted formation,
white as heartwood,
sticky and moaning.
so i say to you,
"i want to scream love into your body
so you never go anywhere without it"
and what i mean by this is
i want to put my mouth against
your luscious lightly-jutting smirk and part its seam--
draw a breath encompassing my whole heart,
the broken parts and happy parts and all the rest,
a breath drawn from my gut that says
you are something i want and need and
exhale into your gut that says i am something you want
so that your lungs fill too: let it travel
from the height of your esophagus,
your trachea and down, down
to the bottom of you.
let the love i release curl your pudgy painted piggies
into cool sand.
let it shimmer
Reason left me in a hurry, in a get-away-car; Reality itched behind the wheel -- me and him lost touch long ago. Or so my exes say. I am meeting with one in the afternoon over coffee. She hates coffee.
Willa. She is as wispy as she sounds - long, thin, dirty blonde hair, arms that fit the circumference of a circled middle finger and thumb. Fragile as an ecosystem. I dated her back when I was into saving the world one organic, animal-free meal at a time. Now my love for cows and chickens no longer keep them alive. Willa had a pet pig Pinky. Pinky and I were jealous of each other. In the end, I ate him. Well, not him specifically, another pig.