[x]

the saturday after your birthday is where i foundbefore you there was an incessant need to be touched
but for no longer than the time it took to touch, sweat, and moan
and never by the same hands twice;
for vacancies to be filled
and to never have an empty bed when sleep finally came.

when i found you it was dark and i was drunk.
it wasn't a story built for the centuries,
but we will be the lovers whose names are remembered for the years to come,
tied and woven in song and into the bodies of trees, we will be so in love
that the angels above will cry in jealousy because in my haze,
heavy and raw and with everything burning inside me, i'm afraid i fell in love that night.

being

alpengloweverything hard-kept in the heart is falling onto paper. each word so well-fought to be kept within the chest becomes a snowflake from november skies, but the winds are unseasonably warm and a fire is kindled inside each bone in place of a bitter chill.

there are ten thousand things i can never tell you.

the way that wars are fought, i wage battles among my selves to keep the quiet. you will never hear my voice, too soft like the pillow beneath your head each time our bodies find each other, say how my breath becomes a porch swing when we touch and i sway.

i can never call you by any name, given at birth or given by heart. you will neve

a thorough submissioni have found my heart-
it has put itself into this.
my hesitations are little more
than bad habits,
filed somewhere between
biting my nails and always saying i'm sorry.

the expectation of the winds
blowing softer til they ceased
ended with your mouth on mine;
the nerves fraying from fear
have been tended to with needle and thread;
and the water i so wiklfully wouldn't touch
feels warmer as it inches
like your hands
up my ankles to my bare knees.

i have found my heart-
it has put itself into this.
my stomach turns the ocean calm
when i think of the messes i'll make,
and the sewing you will stitch.
and i'm terrified
like ni

constellations are just bodiesyou left me in my bed-
i was crying-
when you walked down my stairs
for the last time.

you were to spend the night-
you lived hours away-
until you told me
you couldn't do this
anymore.

i was fine-
you were just a constellation-
until your words
forced images of my last love
before my mind's eye.

i cried before you-
i hadn't cried in months-
but i didn't cry for you.

in retrospect, as you closed my door-
it was the last time-
my only thought is
why didn't we fuck
before saying goodbye?

unending, ceaselessnothing exists
better
than the moment
hesitant
anticipatory
of entrance
entranced
by the sway
porch swings
of hips
how pendulums
tick

and we talk
murmurs
until taciturnity
takes hold
of each others' tongues
and gasps
sudden
cause gaps
in the connection
unbreakable
as unity
unties
only to retie
in ceaseless
reunion
again.

a letter of hatred, to myselfdear child,
dear little girl,
dear melissa,
dear sweet, innocent, beautiful melissa,

there is none of this that you would choose for yourself; there is none of this that you would see coming. a beautiful infant, born bright yellow like your favourite dress when you were three, you were perfect. you wore jaundice like a mink stole, blocked tear ducts like cat-eyed glasses. you cried because you were unafraid to show others how you felt: you were not scared to let them care.

strangers paused your parents on the street to peer inside of your stroller, marvelling at the porcelain doll within; the big blue eyes, reflecting the sky in grand

a letter to ethanyou're fifteen minutes away.

that's a quarter of an hour, that's ten miles, that's space enough that i never have to see you again.

but still i feel my heart beating like a rabbit's foot against my rib.

look.

i'm a girl still in denial
of being a woman with
breasts and hips and a womb.
i'm a child with my heart and i will surrender it foolishly
to the first boy to give me roses and push them into my hair.
i don't know how to love,
the way i don't know how how to stop.

but let me tell you this- it happens.
they both do.

i loved your fragile brown eyes like i'd never seen a warmer fire.
i sank my bones like an anchor to

the commutei keep your kiss
under my bed:
i won't lose it
just because you aren't here.

instead,
i will hesitate in the spaces
between the weeks
we are together,
and we are
apart.

i will write you letters
and gaps and commas
when my head stops spinning
and my pride takes a bow
to the lion of my heart,
and feel the stinging air
of imagination
seep out of its balloon.

put your (love) affairs in order, dear
and find me under your blankets;

i want the places i know best
to be the ones made of skin,
secretly tucked away
in the crook of your elbow
where my body rests, or
behind your ear,
like a pencil-

i want you to write me words

first weekend and realisationsyou begin to talk
because talking means that
someone else can't
&you start to realise
(as most girls do)
that you have a boyfriend

&soon
he's not just a boyfriend;
he's your boyfriend
&he's not just better than
anyone else in the world
he's better than
anything else in the world

&you would trade years off your life
to spend a little longer with him
or to see him smile when he's sad
or to feel his face in your hair
the way he does when he hugs you
&you can't feel it
because right now he's too far away

but distance is only the space between
point a and point b
between you&between me
&if you give it just a little more tim

scattered grassrootsi am the great plains-
vast,
barren,
and sparse.

i begin losing my hair and
scattered grassroots
define me.

i am tumbleweeds lost in the wind,
tumultuous dust storms
from the dryness i leave you in.
this becomes my skin.

i miss having someone
to tell i love,

but the ache it left in my bones,
deserts and sands,
is reminder enough

that fond remembrance
doesn't mean it's
there.

the vomiting crowd of coney islandthe destructive walls are shaded
in grey and i am remembering
every feeling i have forgotten-

i am terrified.

this is a city that never sleeps,
the bones of my chest thrumming
like taxi cabs in the streets,
my fingers shaking
in want for comfort and solace
and love.

i am not standing
in lorca's vomiting crowd-
i am his vomiting crowd,
looking high and low
and between my clenched fists
for catharsis and purification,
for the reason of this illness
pressed against my skin,
for the indefinable sickness
i drown in like bubbles of spit
day in and day out.

i fear the restraints
i've placed for myself,
that they may not be the

romanticism is such bullshiti don't understand a bit
what's so romantic
about missing-you and distance,
love stressed and strained like string
across miles of roping rivers;

it's ugly and sad
and there is no cure
because i will not wait by the letterbox
praying daily on my knees to a god i know i believe in but i'm not sure you do
to hear word from you-
that you're well;
that you're happy;
that you're eating and sleeping and feeling alive;

that's what i want, you know-
i want your vitality to blaze like the great chicago fire,
i want to see your scrawl emboldened with each word
i want to see you concretely on your feet
and certain of where you are going
without a ser

a note in my pockethow
do i go
about releasing
a thin mark,
an invisible fishing line,
from a heart
so unknowingly caught

he calls me little
until i feel
my most near to human,
a drum in my stomach
with a tightening skin;

my heart does not
follow his song,
but i feel his fingers
tangle its veins
with every mention
of smallness.

i am the telephone wire
strung between
these brick buildings,
connecting
without intention
the two spheres
of our lives.

i stretch my fingers
to snap it,
yet fear the whiplash
of (e)motion
that may or may not
sink me to my knees.

instead,
i burn a small effigy,
pinecones singeing
as makeshift hands,

barcelona is burningi owe you an apology-
you, in the crowd,
the one panicking about reading
or the mess at home
or the sheer volume of people
pressing into you like corners;

you,
the woman who birthed me into this world
through hours of agony
as though that wasn't enough
because doctor appointment after therapy appointment after residential stay after thirtieth pound lost,
i've put you through countless
sleepless nights
warped into months of agony
you never asked for;

and you, oh, mostly you.
you, because as hard as i've beaten my own heart into the wall,
and as deep as i let you bury mine,
i know, somehow, i managed to do the same to you.

yo

write what hurtsi'm here to tell you
about fire and living
& how both burn even if you ignore them

it's not about what feels good
it's about what doesn't
cornering what hurts
and exposing it
really displaying it
pedestal on high
for what it is
and not what it pretends to be

you are not living
until you hurt
you can't be alive
if all you know is comfort

comfort is only a sign
that you are doing what you know
it is admittance of limitation
because you are human
and only know so much
and it's agonising to think
that you can be comfortable with that
and not want to reach out
and touch every thing you find
and read every book you see
an

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lovesick girl's hearti'm starting to feel
the intensity of the silence
linger on my back again,
your fingers, my spine.
it scares me,
how heavy a hand
can be on a body.

for this,
i pretend we are both windows,
open to the world,
yet still a layer of glass
to keep ourselves safe,
or really, each other.

it would be wrong
for me to say
i don't worry every night,
before i fight for
a few hours' sleep-
the only thing
i can never believe in-
that no matter how much
better
i become,
better will never mean best
for you.

i am malleable like clay,
the dirt and water
i find in my hands
after i extract them,
like hands full of golden teeth,
fro

the mat that clung to my backmy story was that
love knew me,
& i knew love;
that we embraced,
our limbs interwoven
like the fabric
of the universe.

it has been two weeks,
& i have two freckles
like tooth marks
right where you left
a bruise,
that last time
i saw you,
the last time
i thought maybe
you could love me
as i am.

the sadness of how
mistaken i was
fills me up now
& blossoms like a flower,
hot tea like twigs & branches
within my bones.

my story has changed thus:
i loved
i lost
i fell
apart.

i hope,
more than the number of wishes
made on the stars tonight,
that one day,
you can be in a relationship
with me
instead of my sickness;

i'm too sick to lovedon't let me go
if you don't know
what to do without me;

if you can't
sleep at night
because you wonder
whose arms i'm in,
and break bones every time
they're not yours:
it means you should
hold on to me.

i know
it seems like
i might just jump
but i always come back to you.
i'm sorry that i'm so stuck.

but still,
love is when you answer my call,
to hear your voice
a thousand miles away.
i'm sorry we aren't
together
anymore,
i'm sorry i'm
too sick
for you to
love
again.

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standing army

by *ohsostarryeyed, Nov 11, 2012, 6:07:09 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

i didn't feel myself signing away
the next indefinable period of my life
to worry and unease
when i couldn't find words
to tell you what you saw
in the
spaces
between.

if i don't break our bonds
tying us like kite strings
across a few cities
and maybe a couple hours,
i will write you letters
instead of quiet times
resting on your pillows,
or the inlets of your arm.

i will be segmented
like the trunk of an earthworm
between boston,
the berkshires,
and missouri's banks;
i will wait for the mail
and days of leave,
the way i never was able
to project ahead to see
i was the last person,
a child in a woman's body,
to enlist in a relationship
built on war zones.

in a fragile state with the
careful siphoning
of delicate emotions,
i took an oath
to protect my heart
the way you did
to protect your people.
you found your way inside-
i couldn't keep you out.
you gave me the words
i couldn't find
and i signed my name
on the line above,
contracting for endless unease.

(not an army alive
could conquer this.)

standing armyby *ohsostarryeyed

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

i like can't think straight
so i wrote things down and this probably is incoherent
i don't know what i got myself into
i don't know why i don't care
i don't know why this means so much to me

love 1 1

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

*MinkaFTW Nov 12, 2012

Feels a bit like he did when he was drafted.

*MinkaFTW Nov 25, 2012

The thing is, you never know how it will play out. He might be back like nothing happened, he might get so messed up that he's not even the same person he was, or he just won't come back. There's also the possibility that you will not really WANT him to be back (morbid, but true).
Thank you, same goes to you </3

*ohsostarryeyed Nov 12, 2012

fucking scary. he's going to training full time and such at the end of february, and then specifically for what he's going to be doing directly after, and that takes us til the end of november. so i'm not thinking about this.

*MinkaFTW Nov 12, 2012

that earns you a title of an "Army Wife" in more than one way. we fight our own war

*ohsostarryeyed Nov 25, 2012

i initially just sat with your comment for a little, wrote it off every time because i was like, psh we just got together, we probably won't stay together when he leaves. however, i should learn that i'm wrong about feelings a lot. i think things are going a hell of a lot deeper and now it's scary, and now i can understand this better. i'm here for you if you ever need to talk about it <3

*Sye216 Nov 11, 2012

I like the rhythm in this piece. It flows well without necessarily having a solid rhythmic structure.

*ohsostarryeyed Nov 12, 2012

thank you :]

~Mordial33 Nov 11, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

It's okay, don't worry about it...another awesome poem!

*ohsostarryeyed Nov 25, 2012

thanks!

~Mordial33 Nov 25, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

No problem at all!

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