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November,
Please tell me what it feels like to have someone unravel the palms of your hands. The outline of my skin melts like dying candles. I want to feel the pulse of your brushstrokes within the thunder of my lungs. It echos underneath my veins, it stings.
(via writerbloc)
30 
November,
Please tell me what it feels like to have someone unravel the palms of your hands. The outline of my skin melts like dying candles. I want to feel the pulse of your brushstrokes within the thunder of my lungs. It echos underneath my veins, it stings.
30 I’m on my way back from the gas station that’s just up the street from the the room I’m renting. I’ve got a small bag full of Corn Nuts, cigarettes, and Sobe. I know what you’re thinking… Yeah. I would have preferred a Mountain Dew, but at least the Sobe tastes like juice. I mean, it’s got vitamins and shit, right?
I wander past a house, and get a whiff of something that smells home cooked. Maybe a little burnt on the underside, but probably still nutritious. I start sobbing. I can’t help it. I’m grateful that the lights are dim, and street is empty. I’m sure my eyes are puffy, and I can feel my nose running. I look hideous when I cry. I’m an ugly crier. That’s why I like to cry alone… among other reasons.
See, when I was growing up, dinner time was always the worst part of the day. My parents insisted on eating together. They probably read it in some idiotic book that upper-middle class white people read about rearing children. It was supposed to instil some sense of family unity — or normality — in me. But, I just remember sitting there every night, alternatively staring between my knife, and my folks chewing their food in silence.
Praying that I could make it to my last bite without anyone saying anything stupid, or ugly. Hoping that my mother wasn’t going to do something crazy, or willing my dad not to do something pathetic; she was so volatile, he was so weak.
Inwardly cringing at the memory of shattered plates and twisted faces; born of frustration, wielded in anger, flung with contempt. Trying to think about anything else, in fear that focusing on the high probability of violence, or misery, would manifest it…
Smell is a powerful sense. It’s deeply connected to memory, sometimes even more so than sight. Smells sneak up on you, especially pleasant ones; filling you first with want, then nostalgia, and then, in some cases, sadness.
I remember my parents, and how much they hated each other, even though they had been sincerely in love — at some point anyway. I think about how alone I felt sitting at that table with them. Separate for the sake of survival, because if I dropped my guard and let them close? The toxicity of their feelings would have infected my vital organs.
My parents used me, as leverage against each other — or as a reason to hate the other. My love has always been a weapon for someone else to use, for the most devious, or hurtful of reasons.
I remember my parents… I remember myself as a little girl, and the best moments being when the house was quiet; I played by myself, making up stories for all of my toys. I think about my past, and I know that it’s no wonder that I’m alone. I’m not always lonely. Most of the time, I enjoy the solitude; the calm; the simplicity.
But still… I think it would be nice to be close to someone. I have nothing to tether me to this world, and no support structure to keep me from crumbling. Sometimes I’m afraid that I’m just going to disintegrate and blow away on a mild breeze.
Sure. I’ve known love. I feel love. But it’s always a tentative sort of feeling. There’s always fine print, or restrictions and conditions. It’s never quite the right fit. Too tight and I run. Too lose and I drift. Too strong and I fizzle out. Too weak and I fade away.
Sometimes, I’m afraid that I’m too difficult to really get to know. There are so many levels you have to navigate, or walls to hurdle. Secret doors and hidden rooms. Even when you think you’re moving forward, you’re probably further behind than you suspect. Just when you think you’ve got me, I get going very slowly — slipping just beyond your fingertips.
I’ll be understanding, when you get frustrated, or forgetful. Just long enough to realize that you were never right for me to begin with. Maybe that’s true, or maybe it’s just what I convince myself because I don’t want to feel so vulnerable and disappointed. I want to feel special, cherished, and kept… but I won’t trouble you about it… Because I want to know that you know I’m worth the attention and affection.
I’ll probably write it in a letter, that maybe you’ll be too distracted, or busy to read. I get it. It’s okay. Really. I’ve been training for this my whole life.
I’m used to being alone.
— ME
51 September,
It was cold, that morning. I vomited my skin spilling a few poems I wrote for you. Fingertips found echos under my lungs as I watched atoms choke on a haiku. The last stanzas of your body morphed into a notebook and I found myself writing words on your lips, watching the ink run to your palms. I wrote on your heart, but kept a damp napkin near to wipe the ink you would never love.
14 I was seventeen when I walked home from school on a misty day with my mind completely wrapped in your spiderwebs. I felt the dampness in the air and I saw the sky turn a steel blue-grey. With technicolor lights hanging from window shops, my breath caught in my throat. I thought I saw you. But my eyes played a trick on me. I always tried to look for you in everyone. It was a curse that dispersed all throughout my being, so much that it hurt. Everyday I prayed for something to bring you to my shores - they shimmer lavender (you never knew). Wallflower is what they used to call me. Silent but lovingly deadly. You could have had a journey to the moon and back with me. But at that foolish age, boys don’t remember anything but ruby lips and seductive flesh. Being wise beyond my years is what cradled me like a thunder storm. I was far ahead of you. I knew I’d never have you. Still, I cherished you like a glistening golden locket against my cinnamon skin. Young girls can’t help what they feel. And when they love, they burn everything in their path like crimson wildfire. You were always a stranger, as was I. We knew each other through bittersweet stares, light taps on shoulders, knowing smiles, and lunar embraces. You never told me your stories, I never told you mine. We held in place through silence, and in that silence we faded as we were meant to. Time tried to tell me I was made for something bigger…but I’m still waiting. One day you’ll read this, and one day you’ll know. But as always, I could be wrong.
(Source: lanuariusstella)
48 I met this girl. Her hair is made out of the wingspans of sparrows, but it’s the color of the sea. She lives no where tangible, but she’s too inherently close to be only in my mind. I have lined my fingers up with her visible spine. It’s like there is a race on every inch of her skeleton to escape. I swear only a few nights ago I saw her spine split. Did you know girls’ spines are home to poisonous butterflies?
She’s the kind of girl whose lips are made of regret. The kind of girl that has a house but never calls it home. I can tell she’s trying her best to vanish. She lives the seal of lilac kisses on a desk that’s only three spaces away from mine. She walks beside me in the hallways occasionally, never noticing me much. But she smells like the best part of every season rolled into one and her fingers tell of passage ways and roads. Her fingers are maps, marked by degradation—a bad tendency to chew and pick at her cuticles.
Her eyes are restless. Like she knows the universe is watching her and she cautiously glances back. Sometimes I swear I can see her watching her reflection in the glass, not out of vanity, but just to make sure she’s still there. She’s checking her sanity. She takes a taxi home sometimes. The day I got up the courage to say something to her I asked her if she thinks the taxi driver is a kind man. She absentmindedly said “Oh, he’s not real. Nothing is.” And then turned to take her leave.
Did I tell you I met a girl? She has hair made of sparrows. One day I hope I can summon the courage to say one thing more. “I like you. Will you be my friend?”
Signed,
K
9 Amy’s Note: Beautiful metaphor, used quite well in my opinion.
Dear the-boy-who-monopolizes-my-use-of-the-‘you’-pronoun,
I’d only leave this on your doorstep on a blustery day. Nothing of mine has ever been immune to being blown away, so why not stick to tradition?
My life has always been a dandelion of sorts. I suppose I must have been intact once, nestled in the soil, long enough ago to have left me with no recollection of it. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been mutilated and whittled away, seeds pirouetting into the wind, wishes being whispered like conspiracies - wishes that break me and bruise me rather than benefit me.
For the most part, I manage to watch with acceptance (and on good days, nonchalance) as the best parts of my existence scatter and fall and prepare to blossom without me into brilliance I will never witness, but it was vastly different with you. Simply put, you were the stem and I never dreamed that the backbone of something could be so vulnerable. But you weren’t the sturdy tree trunk I imagined you to be, and the wind was ruthless.
You didn’t take it all when you left, but your departure certainly drained the spirit out of whatever remained, reducing it to the lowly status of a tumbleweed, miniature and tattered, struggling to survive in a merciless expanse of desert. Sometimes, when the sun is particularly scorching, parched lips and dehydrated tongues wonder out loud if you put up a fight at all. They mull over the possibility that the wind didn’t take you hostage — that you were a willing passenger.
I’m still trying to work out whether or not it changes things. If you’re out there aching and reminiscing, does that numb my own pain? If you are happier than you’ve ever been and have moved on a million times in contrast to my stationary mindset, does that stunt my growth even further? I’m writing to you so that these questions can step out of the realm of ‘rhetorical’. I’m writing so that they’ll stop drumming on the inside of my skull and branding themselves onto the underside of my eyelids. I’m writing to you because, if an answer exists, you’re the only one who could possibly know it.
I’m writing because I’ve realised closure is more of a rarity than a right. But there are a thousand loose ends that need tying up and, although I know a happy one is a farfetched concept, I think it’s my turn for an ending. Symmetrical bows are out of the question, but it would only take your fumbling fingers a minute to execute a couple of knots. (Pull them tight; I couldn’t risk falling back here again.)
Love, the-girl-whose-heart-you-tried-and-failed-to-uproot.
21 