Young Writers discussion

The following will be a collection of my poetry, both old and new. Feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome. Thank you for reading, if you decide to!

Here is a link to all of my previously posted or older poetry.

When the horses run.

evenings are so beautiful in the summer at 7 o'clock
when the mountains are awash with gold and tatters of
setting-sun and the crags are brooding azure with an offset of
pleasing emerald and tawny grass. nothing may hide in
those shadows as the sun is low against the road and in
the eyes of everyone. so dangerous, so pure.

yesterday at that time the herd of my home's wild horses
crossed the road before me, with quivering flanks. they were
infinitely surreal and infinitely beautiful, so as to make
me humble in the blatant face of this life's best attributes.
simple beauty is so profound, such as in the elegance
of a horse's natural skittishness. they ran for
three paces aside my vehicle before I lost them.

Hold her still.

she was a girl of middle knuckles, busted bones
bleeding pride. her addictions lay in flesh and
gunpowder scars. a certain taste of metal
to her mouth, a thing on edge. her tongue, savage.
her eyes, lupine, supine, feline.

she spat on men she may depend on and grew frustrated
with those who rubbed her feet. let me walk, screamed
she, and she learned that all on her own. what she gave
away were pieces of chalk. when damp they faded in
storms so that no one could understand her language.

what she left behind was a preconceived notion, and
battery-acid memories. to understand meant to pretend;
she was untranslatable, held aloft by barbaric independence.
she thought she ought to have been born a man and it made
her difficult for men to love; her laugh was too fierce.

she believed that she could never be touched in a way that held her still --

alas, even the ocean is serenaded by the pull of the moon
and the earth by the gravity of the sun far away.

the mountains may bend and break, the dog once wore wolf skin
canyons of rock are worn by water, the falcon flies to the falconeer
rushing rivers freeze fast, horses run circles for heavy hands.

what hope did she ever have of remaining wild?

Love sick, love sore

The sick malignancy of mind, body, soul--
a heart alight with fire, apathy, the inflamed
torches of self-deprecation and love-sickness.
Oh, where have I gone? Even the joy of the run
has fled from me and I am left with asinine
sloth.

I wrote a letter the night after he left, on the first of
July. Or ought I say I wrote and rewrote, wrote and
rewrote, till the pen bled ink and my heart felt
an ache of conflict? What was I to say aside from
that I longed for him with my bones? I feigned
nonchalance, stupidly, and swallowed my declarations
of affection as all those in our generation do,
if they were not the sort to too quickly spawn them.
I described to him the sky, my empty days of empty tasks,
filled to the brim with restlessness.

I never believed I would be captivated in such a way,
that I would be tethered by memories. I have never
laid in bed, so still, and refused to stir long past
the time I awoke. These poems are void,
these words baseless. He will not read
the blood I bleed or see the tears that
are shed in darkness.

I resent to be so weak but the sound of his voice
the last night he called seemed thousands of miles away
and that goodbye is meant to last me months until
again I hear him. How much can a person change?

This is the last I sulk; I ought bear the ills of
this tragic thing and live with a heart on my sleeve,
as any brave human does.

Come alive, we live.

I wished the Beat Generation had been alive for longer
and Jack Kerouac might've spread a little more love for the phenomenal.

Even if it smelt like vice at least he wrote his words with
fanaticism, all at once, one giant sheet of thought and feeling
on a typewriter, perhaps with his own blood.

It is an extraordinary world

It is a beautiful, tragic world.

And let me say that I hope to leave it raw with love
and memories that taste so fully of me every
monument is corrupted by my name. I hope your
youth is corroded by my color.

I want every woman you one day touch to feel
my love for you. I do not mind sharing your mouth or
hands. I want only your heart to beat in a way that
changes all other loves.

This is not about you and I.

This is about all futures and pasts, the thing that
makes this miraculous earth miraculous
the beautiful essence in all life,
in all broken people.

We will never be in peace but no musical symphony sounds like
pacifism. The chaos is beautiful, the dance is
resonant in the roots of selves. The roads
are endless, the possibilities outstanding.

I do not know where I will go but for the
moment all is right, all is well, the mystery is alive.

Vivo vamos,
viva vamos.

Kriss, these are gorgeous. Please write more! I await updates eagerly. :D

Thank you, Anastasia! I appreciate it!

00:38

00:38, military time, my thoughts polluted by yearning
I wonder if he thinks of me to the same passionate degree.

I fell asleep angry, lonely, aching in the same melancholy
way that the earth must ache in response to the cathartic
vices of her children, the dark and sinful things that
come back to haunt the mother. Why do we carry the
burdens of our love?

00:58 I think of him in the dark light of late night, stooped to
mark my shoulder with his mouth..

The cliche is that when sleep is hard to find you are
alive in another human's dreams. I wonder if that was the
truth of it last night, as I lay awake and let my mind turn
not circles but sections, as though each thought were a radian,
and each concern had a sector.

01:13 it used to be that now we would have checked another
movie from our summer list and he would kiss me to sleep.

I almost reach for the Iliad, as though the battles of
the Trojans and Greeks could sooth my unruly soul.
Why does the wrath of Achilles settle my heart?
I think of how it is my destiny to let go--
I set free the things I care for most.


01:24 i am no less alone

gates of troy (warning, mature themes)

Imagine the deafening crack that must have sounded
as the gates of Troy were slammed shut. The sound of fate.

That city must have lived with the serenade of war just outside
perhaps their water even ran red, the loam of the earth a
frothing beast of calamity as it was churned up beneath
the foot of horse and man, all destined to doom.

How many children of our generation face that same horror?
Another door is closed, another bond cut, the white
cords of matrimony burnt. Severed to a sickening degree
just as the heel of Achilles.

We teach ourselves to hate, voices raised, the chorus of
battle one of wet mouths and virgin skin. How many daughters
forget their fathers when touched by sin? I watch young
girls wade into corruption and emerge with tattered
dresses, craving—

and that is such an ugly word.

Maidens must have stood in Troy and known their fates and prayed.

Where are our prayers now? The children are not loving, the children
are fucking and forgetting. When was the last time we fought
for anything that mattered? The cries of our youths are so
forlorn and hollow, so overlooked, as though they are the mere
echo of another generation’s tragedies.

We are a generation raped
and in love with our assailant.

Ever man a stranger, every woman unknown
and losing grip.

never let the bread taste stale
or the laughter sound fake

do not regret the taste of wine
and as long as it is in good company
it won't matter if it was bought for five
dollars at a corner store

there are too many lonely nights with
silence in the apartment, or house, or trailer
when we can hear our neighbors beat their
wives, or their dogs and our tongues taste
like too much sadness, and whiskey

life is too short
we hear that everywhere but
what does it even mean?

life is too short and living so long,

living dead-end jobs and living for people
who no longer love us, living for tomorrow

living for a weekend three months from now
living for a moment that happened three years ago
living for the hope that they will take you back
living for the need of a parent's, grandparent's approval

god, what are we waiting for?

i stopped on the side of the road today
pulled over with the radio blaring and looked
at the sky and the mountains and thought,
i am so small here

and mumford and sons was blaring, cars were driving past
this is life. i had cut my hair an hour ago just to see
what it felt like, eight inches, gone, and i spread my
arms out toward the sky and smiled, ear-to-ear

life is the moment, not the expectation
the perfect imperfect moment of joy or sadness
that is so dulled by drugs, drink, sex

don't waste a second of it
don't settle, don't settle,

and that's what i'll scream at my children
until they know what it means to get less than
what you want because you settled, and that's
all we do

settle for those jobs, those lovers, those lives
settle for living unhappy, living half-way, living half-dead

refuse, simply refuse--take your happiness in your fists,
selfishly, and love every moment of pain and elation.

never let the sex be bad
or the love false

do not regret the taste of wine
and as long as you drink it with good people
it won't matter if it was bought for five
dollars at a corner store

life is waiting
but it must be claimed

nothing comes easy but i thank god for that--
if it were given to us, it would be cheap

and that is the thing.

Walk more of the world.

Why is it we never walk barefoot? As children that was
a way of life, no matter the thistles and thorns.

Now we are soft-footed, tender, and I find despite pedicures,
grooming, moisturizer, the soles of my feet bear the trials
of my youth when the sky wore the haze of thick, southern
summers.

Again, it is a thing I love of you, how you can glance
at your feet and say, "I need to walk more of the continent."

The saddest of things

I find the saddest thing in life is the progress of it,
from the decay of childish decadence and innocence to the
loss of adolescent invulnerability and brash passion.

It is as though all of these things are borrowed and cannot
be kept and if they are it is to one day develop into a tragedy,
as if Shakespeare's sick plays are meant to be borne to life.

Growth, although inevitable and necessary, provides a loss of
something that cannot be re-obtained. Youth, the fleeting joy,
is so precious for its transience and the rest of life is a slow decay.

Indeed, it may be a happy progression, from one lesson learned to the next
but the simple fact of the matter is that we may never be what
we once were, before the harshness of reality is realized.

We come so full of promise, possibility, so eager to live, learn, love
and somewhere along the journey the earnest appreciation for these things
is forsaken in favor for timidity, distrust, even scorn.

No one forgets the urgent ardor that accompanies youth, the sense
that no summer may stretch long enough and that this first love
is the only love you will ever need. So foolish, so beautiful!

It is so difficult to forget the betrayal of our passions,
the slow realization that this is a harsh and vibrant world in which
we will not be allowed to pursue our dreams or our loves so easily--

and the stab comes swift and sharp as a knife between the ribs
when the life can no longer be idealized, merely lived, and abruptly
we are disappointed in a person, a place, a thing, it no longer meets our expectations.

It makes it all the more precious to realize that faith in living
is as delicate as spring growth through snowfall, just as tender and impossible
but that the purity of first trusts, first loves, cannot be forgotten in entirety.

People are a resilient breed and it makes our growing tragedy also beautiful for
it is suffering that bridges the raging rivers and builds the homes of stone
it is through the realization that life is bitter that we continue, and thrive.

I find the most frightening thing in life to be the ability for a person
to simply vanish from it, perhaps not always in entirety, but they are gone
and you are left to clutch at memories and tears.

The sheets still smell like them, the house still holds their ghost
and the love that is felt can be stretched across distance and time
so that the heart still throbs with memory and candid want of them.

As children I do not believe we understand the severity of goodbyes
and here, on the crest of adulthood, I am filled to the brim with too many
perhaps that is the truly the saddest of things, to lose the things that hold your love

through no fault of your own.

Any language befuddles the mind, twists the tongue
Te quiero translates to I love you
whereas yo quiero means I want.

Yo queiro a te quiero,

and yet what does it mean when love and want are spelled
the same and the only thing that changes their meaning is
the context?

There have been many times I've paused,
lead in lungs, to think of brokenness and the
inherent hurt of human heart and then,
through resilience, persistence, some sick
and crazy thing that I do not understand,
there is more love to give, more trust to hand
out like daisies to children.

I would like to learn to bear scars like badges of honor,
to say that I have grown because of these, weed-like, because
those are so much harder to kill than petunias.

Mother, no.

Oh, what a mother I would make with my harsh hands and impatience.
What child wants callouses? I am nothing save a callous,
from heels to heart to head and I do not believe in nurture.

So what a mother I would make if on some off-chance a child
sprang from my loins and I was left to raise my offspring,
with love I could not bear because all at once it would be
too much and not enough. I might blame them for ruining
aspirations, dreams, life--

and here I had a conversation with my mother when she commented
on the fact that I was glowing, vivacious, to what I believe was life
and she spoke of pregnancy, and hoping against it, and I told her
it was impossible, I would terminate such a thing with my mind for now is not
the proper time, nor will it be within the next ten or twenty years
or forever. she said, oh, but that is terrible.

I am not fit for motherhood, because the world is in my womb
and my hands are harsh, my heart weathered for lonely climates with
soldiers and warships and battle horses, where the dust stirs high and
heavy. There is no place for children there, and what is so
wretched about that?

I witness so much suffering, so much agony, in this world of
melancholy and pain and uncertainty, with poisoned oceans and
declining climates. Where does one support a child in such a clime?
I have heard so much about the "gift of life" and it is beauty, certainly,
but it is given to so much, so freely.

And so I am harsh.

the salt corrodes

And here we are with sin so pretty on our heels,
youth sanguine, corrupt by the common values of our breed.
Commodities we are not, vices set to self-destruct and
devalue the remains of gold and brass. Watch the statues
parade as though they are young boys and girls, hearts
green copper, corroded by salt. The damaged seek the
damaged, the cycle repeats, the loved burden the loved,
the beer deflates, the lights turn off, the fabric is torn.
And here our dreams are stacked like card-towers, with
flashing images of the commercial, the ideal beauties,
above-average, god-like, creatures of genetics and
money and surgery. Where does the lie end where does
the honesty begin? It is a surge of uncertainty and
certainty all at once as it becomes apparent the vast
majority is simply the vast majority, condemned
to normalcy, lives of paper-boxed neighborhoods where
the colors are the same and the people are interchangeable,
and so we begin our sinfulness in youth, with the bitterness
of scornful adults who have lost so much more than us.
And here we are with sin so pretty on our heels,
mad, rabid, frothing for the American dream of
possibility. Oh, and the salt corrodes.

the light so blatantly bright against the crest of
horse hair, pale gold, the color of wheat, and above the
blue blue sky as my neck craned up, un-haltering, and the
horse stood still for me and the sky was littered with
clouds above his head, like the feathers of his mane,

so beautiful it put an ache of nails in my chest and my
lungs felt short of breath, my blood a toxic venom
of partiality. and here i think of the so many ways
that there is an ache inside of me, not in my bones,
but in the essence of who i am, the essence of my person,
so far as to say my soul, and i am short of words now
for this feel of exquisite pain, as though it is something
more than what it is, which is hurt at this beautiful
living,

each touch an explosive sensation, each moment a grain of
sand in the length of earth, of world, of stars, of dust
and i am a pulse, a throb, waiting for more and laughing
laughing until i am alone and filled with this sensation
because it is all too much, too much. so beautiful.

a sidereal boy, irises pinpoints of stars, afflicted with universe dust and meteorites and I,
petrous, heart of stone, mind of granite, ribs of diamond
but hardly so valuable, having been beat and battered by a
human heart
hardly so sumptuous,
I feel the allegiant call of the maker,
drawn to the stuff that star's are made of in someone else's body, brain
and I know the call of loneliness, of alien shores
time a foison, the earth with plenty to give on a scale,
generous so long as it is not leeched, just as he, just
as he--
and I,
feel the absence so profound, as those stars made me cachinnate
and sometimes conversations without seem
flumadiddle.

this proprioception keeps me, a body on the verge of
breathless, breathless, breathless somethings
and the mein of me is lost, ambitious, desperate
clawing for
for what? life so quixotic, these languages ennui, otiose affections
and so many possible failures hinge on me, me alone

and I find,
the uncertainty an addiction, a vice worse than gin and tonic,
than morphine, than heroin, and like any addict I pine and we pine
for more of this life, unquiet, unsettling
cavorting in youth,

and are we not all forms of pentimentos? evolution,
shooting stars, wishes, skinned knees, changing, rotating
the earth goes round the sun, aggrandized.

the feeling

Sometimes,
there is a feeling in me
that compels me to madness.
I once sat in my underwear at a time
after midnight and painted my walls black,
haunches against the white tile, my skin the
pallor of dissatisfaction beneath the fluorescent lights,
my veins were too blue, my skin too white, my
senses far too empty and yet far too acute
because it hurt when my heart beat and it
felt as though I were a horse with colic,
my stomach twisted into knots, my face
pale, and it was such extreme stress,
the weight of it made me empty
and so I was compelled to
simply sit, and wait, for
the feeling to pass
but sometimes it
rears back up
and I find
that I am
in the
abyss.

We are not afraid of growing old,
but of growth alone, of silent age
where the journey becomes barren
and everyone else had moved on.

Children become adults who venture on,
and grandchildren become adolescents with
little time for grandparents. Schedules
no longer include you daily and this

Is why lovers are of such importance,
if only it ought last 40 years, 50 years
rather than a week, a month, 365 days
where did that timeless love go?

I want to grow old with someone if I must grow old
so that when I must depart it is hand-in-hand,
and my loneliness is not alone but filled with love.

And here you have the void toward which we cry
and there is so little that is heard there in the depths
where the kraken, ,the Goliath, rests in peaceful slumber.
Is that placated beast my own?
To whom does it belong?

The thing stirs with a thousand nasty heads,
and teeth that are not razor sharp but instead sickly
sickles, made to slash and rip, to cleave the wheat
from the stalk and to harvest the crop.
To whom does it belong?

Oh, and have I yet to mention the voices with which it whispers?
It is just a serenade, the song of the siren on stranger shores,
the sort of thing that lulls and drags on down to the deep blue sea
in order to drown it, a creature in love, in fastidious love.
To whom does it belong?

I feel it in my mind, in my body, in my thoughts. An abyss,
an insatiable thirst for more. Greed, vivacious, the thing that
we beat back in hopes of hiding. Jealousy, the green devil, and wrath the red one.
Can we every find hopes of drowning the fire of ourselves?
To whom does it belong?

And the answer is everyone
the abyss is within, spiraling,
and so often we forget the weight of the universe, of space,
and that it is collapsing around us. What if I were to say that
the human mind is the most vindictive of black holes?

To whom does it belong?

love as a season

Snow too soon in November, when autumn is clinging to the branches
and the sun is still just strong enough to melt it by midday.
That is what I am afraid of happening, our sentiment like
frost on stubborn fall leaves, when everything is vibrant with
rustic, worldly color.

If love were a season, it would be the winter.

I am not saying this because it is cold, or because it is bitter
but it may transform a person into those things. If it were a season,
it would be winter, because it soaks into the bones and hurts the joints.
Any first snowfall is pristine, beautiful, vibrant but it
inevitably melts or becomes tarnished by footfall

(or hurtful words, actions, thoughts)

Perhaps I say this out of fear because, like winter, love may
be forgotten. It is a cold season and the warmth of another makes it worthwhile,
but in the springtime, in the summer, in the autumn the cold is much more bearable.

I say love is like winter because the season fades
and the lakes thaw, the ice becomes smooth water--snow,
left behind and forgotten, on order to appreciate new growth and warmth.

I miss you like I miss the seasons,
the same way that I miss the colors of autumn or the first flowers of spring,
the way that I long for fireplace fires and chill breezes, the same way that
I wish for bronzed summer legs and beaches, where the sand is white and soft
when there there are raging storms outside and the rain that falls like a curse on
red desert sands.

Kriss wrote: "love as a season

Snow too soon in November, when autumn is clinging to the branches
and the sun is still just strong enough to melt it by midday.
That is what I am afraid of happening, our sentim..."

I love this poem. ♥ I've never seen that analogy made and it's spectacularly done.

Ahh thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

WE may one day feel the weight of this armor more heavily,
and in our strength we grow in order to withhold the burden.
WE slip and fall and lose our beauty, oh most certainly, to
the time, the place, the culture. WE bark and bay.

THE Spartans found dishonor in a shield left behind, and
THE Spartans preferred that a helmet be left instead, and
WE wear shreds of dishonor in our sweet abandonment and
WE wear the tatters of our integrity in OUR blatant lies.

I saw disappointment today,

and OUR armor is so heavy may WE please just set it down?

An earth so bright it hurts, the sun a high of a hundred
and it dawned upon me we miss on so many opportunities,
just because chance is one fickle bitch.

What if I had waited a year to come here?

I would not have met so many people who changed my life
and made it that much better, nor would I have encountered
those who taught me more about myself, both the good and
the bad.

It would have taken a single decision to rewrite my entire life
and that is a frightening truth to acknowledge in light of what
opportunities have been missed in favor for these,
and there is no answer, no way to weigh the weight
of fate forgone.

I have no regrets, I simply marvel at the possibilities
and the untranslatable threads of this life and the next
in dimensions beyond, or in these.

It will never stop, this sense of ghost-limb,
of having had an arm which is now lost, and
that is you in my life. I feel the remnants of
twitchy fingers and yet I am grabbing only air
with my mind, chasing the memory of sensation.

Do elephants feel such contrite for felled brethren?
Alas, they do not deal with the same degree of forgetfulness.
I marvel at our nature to forget those that we love for it
is an inability to do so that makes us unbearably human.
A sight, a scent, a sound, and suddenly someone is so alive in your mind again,
so that your teeth taste like a sea breeze, all stale salt and,

that is that,

the breeze comes and goes, and those that held such a part
are simply shakespeare's actors, who fret their moment
upon the stage... and then are heard no more? for what end?
so as to remain the eerily and elegantly haunting thought of
toes curled in the dark, when your leg had been blown off
three years ago, in a hail storm of blood and bone and goodbyes.

I wear marks of all those who have touched me, even those from years ago
and I miss people who are still present in my life, simply because they have changed.
Those are, perhaps, the ones that I miss most profusely--there
is so little lonely about 2000 miles, when one considers it,
but to have a body beside your own but to be unable to dredge up
the courage to speak to them? that is the emptiness of what I mean,
which ought be left in the trenches of vietnam or the carcass of a
washed up fish.

The missing does not end, even once the partings have begun.
We all walk with ghosts.

I cannot recall a time I have felt such wrath
and here it is, insurmountable, the feel of
Achilles' righteous rage, tumultuous at the soles
of my feet, beating a ragged crescendo in my ribs,
and the cavity of my chest. Rage, rage!

There is no dying light, just the clench of teeth
grinding teeth, the exhale of a sharp cry between
jaded jaws as the disappointed is breathed out,
I refuse to cry and yet my eyes are red, watery,
and I have no control, my life is a tornado,
the buildings of my plans stacked like cards.

I had it together,
I had it together,

and at every turn the big bad wolf blows it down.

And what is the ideal? The driving force behind
thought and therefore action, the philosophy
that ought separate us from the rest and yet
is the owl not more pure than the man, lack
malice as it brings upon its victim silent
death? Even the wolf, the wretched wolf,
that knows to bite the belly of the
buffalo and rip those steaming organs
out onto white snow knows not of the
pain it causes and so holds no hatred
for those around it.

And what of the ideal? The momentum behind our cultures,
our tragically obscene civilizations? Where have our
gentle, brilliant philosophers gone with their quiet
thoughts of life and even war? Sun Tzu, a man who wrote
only of war, knew more about people than we do now.

We have nothing to believe in, no great achievements to
aspire toward, and this is the tragedy, producing only
the virtues of athletes who receive much higher wage than
they ought to, and politics that cater far too much toward
issues of such little concern. What of the evils in this
world, left ignored, in favor for the ravenous American
dream? Where has the greatness gone? Into the belly of
corporate America, into the eyes of technology, the
placated knowledge that a hospital may stop your bleeding,
your disease, your mental illness?

We can chew the pills, eat the medicine, dull the sharp pain
of de-evolution with a gnash of gums and drugs, is that the
best way to rout a dream?

Oh, where is the ideal?

There is nothing great left to believe in,
nothing pure left to esteem.

I am sometimes overwhelmed with
how sad life can be,

as the people we need most
are the ones so often absent

and the things we work toward
are not always met, greeted,
embraced,

the things that we love more than all else
are what is extraordinarily temporary, as there
is never enough time for loves and
appreciations so pure, so real--

it must not be kept,
and each moment is given,
borrowed, each breath a
blessing, a gigantic
act against the odds
of life ever being
spun into existence
but it will burn out--

and it is tragic, unavoidable,

as we hold on to feelings instead of people,
onto memories rather than places, onto beliefs
instead of actions.

Oh gosh I have chills when I read this- the emotions are so poignant

a reminder to myself

It is difficult, the path is long, the hill is steep
and the mornings are too early, the nights too brief
but this is the life I've chosen and intend to sustain
in sickness and in health, regardless of exhaustion
or fatigue, or a sense of complete incapability to
continue on, regardless of whether the exertion be
physical or mental. There will always be another step
to overcome, another obstacle to reach, and there is no
such thing as one point of this journey being the end,
as there is always a tomorrow until, in blackness, there
is no more. That is far from now, and unknown, so I must
remind myself to live as though it will be within the next
few moments, loving wholly, living humbly and proudly,
regardless of what tremendous disappointments I face.

I have always said I am an old soul and here is my chance to prove it
with my patience and perseverance, a reminder again to behave as
I have said I would, without kneeling in the face of adversity.
This, as any other thing, can be viewed as only a challenge and
I revel in the thought that I can now conquer one more foe.

I must recollect that the disposition of a leader is not a
reflection of their social or physical status, it is of no
concern as to whether or not they are as esteemed as an officer
or considered a mere private, the lowliest, in the army's ranks
and again it must be mentioned that these points are merely stepping-stones
to a greater, brighter horizon and that each stumble will be worth the
unfortunate pain and wrath, to put it so simply, life refuses to be
fair and yet we are left to deal with the truth of that statement,
the enlightening, humbling, engaging truth that we cannot always be
what we want to be the moment in which we are allowed to be it.

Regardless, continue to strive.

His voice takes on a soft beat, the velvet murmur of
moth wings in the dark. It is like that when he speaks
to me, with a tinge of something else, on the verge of
humor, and he listens, he calls not to talk but to listen,
and I struggle with that at times.

Weeks ago I laid my head on his lap in the dark, held
like dead-weight within the tempest's eye, and struggled
with declarations of love, sea-foam on the tips of sand
or eyelashes, so quick to come and go. I wanted to tell him
so badly and yet he whispered, wait, now is not the time.

If I ever have a daughter, which is a burden and a misfortune I do not want
for many reasons, I will tell her that both pacifists and virgins are fools
for the simple reason that living is a war and love is an act of carnal things,
from the frantic twitch of the heart with hot, hard blood in veins to the
violent scream of tomorrow in young lungs.

I laid naked on my bed last night and listened to my sailor's voice
from miles and miles away, with eyes closed, and if I imagined
hard enough the soft husk of it against my ear almost felt like
a brush of air, and if I thought hard enough it felt as though
he could have just been beside me and he left only a moment ago,
to return shortly.

I understand why I am not allowed to love someone who can stay beside me
and it is because of the fact I can never stay beside them,
and there will be a tomorrow soon when I am the one far away,
and I am the one swimming through strange tides.

On the cusp of sleep, I can feel him beside me.
On the cusp of awakening, I imagine that he is near.
It is strange to think that I slept alone for years
and it is only now that it has become a struggle.

Sorry I haven't been commenting much on these, but I have been reading them all and they're so gorgeous. <3

Ah, thank you so much! I'm glad you've been enjoying them :3

As a surprise it was perhaps one of the most beautiful memories I will ever have
to make a human being, one whom I love, so extraordinarily happy without them
having ever expected that joy, having come from heartfelt intentions.

The lilac sky and a green with such depth the life in it was clear, I will never
forget the inscriptions in the benches or the hundred-year-old streets or the
way that he escorted me on his arm through the lamplight, holding bittersweet
shipwrecks in our chests due to the violent beat of heart toward heart.

I will never forget that smile, one of elated disbelief, or the way he
had to turn around before walking back toward me to embrace, still
laughing aloud even once his eyes were cast over my shoulder.

I had never been looked at in such a way before and perhaps this is what it means
to love forever; that memory will always be soft with love and maybe one day sorrow,
but the tender thing I felt in his arms is not something that can be transformed
from its original state. There is no chemical reaction in which it may be
converted to some other compound of elements. Love will always be love
in memory.

Love Song -

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

I. This pain, acute, the feel of a triangle lodged between my lungs and heart
and I am trying to breathe through each sharp point. I use such analogies
so often because that is the most terrifying of feelings, to be unable to breathe.
Everyone as a child has sat in a pool and held their breath until their vision swam
and their head filled with pressure, until they felt breathless and as though
their lungs would burst into flames from lack of oxygen, a cruel impossibility.

II. That torture is this torture, the simple thought what I have to give
may not be enough, and the hunger of a relationship could easily be the hunger
of a famished dog, too much, too extreme, so that the bones protrude--

II. and in so many regards I am that cur, that wretched cur,
the very dog who stood awaiting the return of Odysseus for years and years,
mangy and neglected, so old that his master's voice lulled him down to death.

III. That is my fear; this voice ought lull me down, not to death, but to some strange misery
because I have spent too long waiting, overwhelmed by the sense of helpless inadequacy,
the result of some small misunderstanding or vast loneliness

IV. and in all respects I have no power to change the situation, no matter my nature
and the inherent urge to make two hears connect and beat together, just once,
for I only have control of my own heart, and not another's, so how can I inspire each?

V. In the very beginning I was told that love does not work across maps,
that each crisscrossing road and city dot can only amount to another
second spent waiting for a reply, or another second spent world's apart
and his world is not my world, and my world was once his but no longer,
so he bores of it, and what do I have left to say? Letters are easy to write,
but feelings are much more difficult through phone calls and weeks of seeing
different views. It is slowly drowning, so close to the surface that the
light is there and possible to reach toward but I am uncertain as to
whether this is enough, or if that small bit of hope is what
can constrict and strangle. I am left to wrestle with insecurities
like seaweed and sea-monsters, an anchor on my ankles.

VI. Now I am thinking of what Rilke wrote when he said that he could not
keep his soul separate from another's. I once thought it was romantic
and now I see what a terrible curse it is, as it ought to be a siren out at sea,
with sailors falling in deathly love with your voice. It is this,
the thread of their hearts which the she-devil tugs upon and uses to drag them
into the depths of sweet dark oceans, where she eats the young fools with the love
still fresh in their eyes.

This life is so heavy; I am left to question if
we are all born with rocks in our stomachs.
Do they not grow as we grow? Do they not change
as we change?

I have written of love quite often, hoping to have
realized its sharp virtue. The water is much
more treacherous than I had anticipated, leagues
left to swim through and I am left craving the
warmth of passion's flame.

It burns. It slips the mind at times but our bodies still burn
and those I care for the most so often bring out the worst in me.

Perhaps if I did not walk so extremely on coals it would not
force me to move my feet this quickly from place to place,
and perhaps if I took on the head-waves by sail rather than
strength of limb I would not sink in the storms.

Let me keep my rocks, let me keep them rocks. I can sink with stones.
I am exhausted of spitting up diamonds for people who do not appreciate them.

It was the last day of summer yesterday, on a September Sunday.
I do not mean this in the literal sense, but allow it to stem from the connotation.
And that feeling is final, the hinting appeal of a thing having run out of time
as it all must, when the day has come to dusk and the year to December. I felt the
same heat to the same degree; but the sky had changed and the smell of the wind
was no longer the placid swelter of the summer, it was a stranger sense,
cool with the oncoming frost and opaque breath fogged in early mornings.

I miss the feel of first snow and the sound, the symphony, of leaves falling
I miss waking long before the sun and finding the stars still awake, winking sleepily,
the bugles calling the sun to rise, the pristine chill of freedoms and hot, hot water.

What more can be said about looking up toward the half-full moon, peering through clouds,
and thinking of one's own vast smallness? What more can be said on the intimately
tiny thoughts of human minds?

I feel as though I am far too young to be this cynical about loneliness
but I am immensely thus and made handicapped by my own dark refusal to be otherwise;
I cannot help but think that so much of this is a burden, Atlas' burden
and the only things that are worth living for are the most simple, such as the
feel of the hot sun against skin, the whistle of birds, the taste of chocolate, the way running makes the limbs so powerful

But why do men fight wars for love? And why do women wage them for their lovers, also?
I want a simple touch and a profound tongue; I want to feel like when he loves me
I am being loved by the earth and the trees, and welcomed home.

Even now in the shadow of my tremendous doubt, I wish for nothing more than to sleep
pressed against the warmth of his shoulder, thinking of how that
in and of itself is a simple thing to love and how deeply I miss it;

aside from the fear that strangles me when I think of my unhappiness and the horrible
concept of being left alone. Maybe I am so afraid because I have seen so many others leave,
and not mean their affections, thus I forsake that new ones can exist with any pureness.

The thought of trying to talk to someone new exhausts me; it is so impossible to get to know a person, in all their darkly complex simplicity and I
cannot bear the thought of doing so again, for the eleventh time,
simply because these pieces do not fit.

Maybe I am the moon and nothing more can be said about it, about me,
as I am so intimately dark and solitary, so incredibly pocked by holes and scars
that I cannot be loved and the only kisses I receive are those of asteroids,
violent and sudden.

I wish I could say that people are left for their flesh and not their souls,
but the truth is that the soul is what we fear and the flesh is what we love.

My home is in a brick box, where when the sun sets
everything is gold and green, geometric squares and sharp
uniforms. There are times the uniformity is broken in the
extreme by the people, although only an insider can tell;
to those who are not a member of the ranks, everything remains
pristine in the sense that it is straight-edged, correct,
made out of shapes.

If you stand at one end and stare straight down the centre,
the American flag can be viewed erected on a tremendous pole
and the New Mexico Zia symbol below, shining red and gold,
and "duty", "honor", "achievement" is written everywhere,
and the names of people who have died are at the feet of
green copper statues, or etched in metal bench plaques--

but the people, oh the people, from every walk of life.

I flounder at their lack of--

anything, everything,
it is as though they are box shapes
cut from shadows, from a cultural uniformity,
of obscenity, disrespect, cruelty, indifference.

I wish our country cared about the children it is raising
to believe in hate, and arrogance, and selfishness--
as if that is their pledge, and they sing it in the allegiance,
or demonstrate the decay of country in their feeble salutes.

Oh, the time and the place, the sloughing of the skin from
our loveless skeletons and the weight of aeroplanes against
each sky's threshold. I feel the heaviness, something so
simple to feel, something so impossible to convey--

Where do we place ourselves in each other's lives?
This is what I mean by sloughing, the feel of skin sliding off,
and I always lost my flesh when I was with you, I always lost my
mind when I was with you, became baseless, became simple.

I do not know if we belong together when I cannot fit beneath your breastbone,
or sear your throat and eyes with all that I am.

I have found something in the words I've written that betrays me
as a person of intense sentiment. I may say it honestly. I am a sun.
Constantly inflamed, impassioned, and I give my warmth to anyone
who would like it. At times that is the lash of intensity they cannot
understand, and so they find it cruel. I am not cruel, I am impatient.
Others find the warmth to be intriguing, intoxicating, and they want it.
Some crave it selfishly, some crave it temporarily. I want to give so much
to those who wish to remain. I do so without restraint; why propose moderation?
I do not want to hinder my ability to love; I just want to have it returned
to the same passionate degree. Am I not like Auden, who pleaded with the stars
to allow him to be the more loving one of the two?

In retrospect, I have my loves written out on paper, and I am read like a book.
It is so much more personal than having my organs strewn out, than having someone
see the inside of me, because here they are. Here are my memories, my hopes.
And let me say that I may ask for too much. Perhaps I want to burn in another's
affections, and that is my own induced suffering. Ought I be happy with what
people are willing to give? Ought I be content with moderation?
Where did the virgin fascination go? Why do so many lose interest once a year
or half a year has passed? Do they believe they know me in my entirety?
I simply do not believe in half-loving, in half-giving, so why not conduct
friendships and loves to their full extremity? Life is too short for
anything less. And still, I look back, I reread my feelings of the moment
and I have too many instances of sadness or intense joy, nothing between
and there are days I wish that I could live with a sense of moderation rather than
the need for everything, all at once.

I care more for him than he does for me
and today, with rain outside, it breaks my heart.

love as a season II

It has felt of autumn for a week or two but between you and I
the season has been with us much longer. Did we carry the weight of it
the first time you brushed your lips against my brow? Were the leaves
entangled in my hair? Perhaps I carry the scent of rotting summer
on my blouses and that was all you could possibly smell.

Or was it that you loved my summer limbs? I am ashamed to say I am cliche enough
to blossom at a man's touch, to unfold, and that is all any love ever is
the unfolding of body and mind; and I was that flower. Perhaps you were the
fall, the cold breath of autumn, and the reason you held me so close
when we slept was to keep your own limbs warm. I should have
seen the falling leaves in your eyes when you said goodbye.

If love is like winter, the heart-break can only be considered in
the colors of autumn: the steely gray of a rainy sky, the blushed shades of
dying foliage, as though made coy by their departure; everything begins to flee
and the cold comes creeping in on summer's hot heels, a bite
in the wind and shorter days, the renewed clarity of the stars.

Heart-break as a season can only be this moment because the warmth of summer
seems so far away, or ought I say distant, as he has been?

an ultraist of living
is not a bad thing to be
lonely, perhaps, to subsist
through the flames of
our own passions.
but by god, it is
so beautiful to
hurt like we do.

you make me feel like a tragedy;
the sort of fairy-tale that belongs in Grimm's,
where the ending is far from perfect, the glass breaks,
the curse is not rewrote by midnight;
the princess cannot be awoken by true love's sweet kiss.

your silence, oh, i wish it would make me rage
but instead it crumbles something fragile inside of me
i thought i had kept reserved from anybody; i had
believed it to be untouchable. it is so delicate
in your hands, in the vast space between words.

"i care about you more than you care about me."
it was a whisper at the time, almost furious,
but sharper than any fury if only due to the
taste of despair it left on my tongue. You
could not argue me and the pause between
breaths was empty, echoing, the resonance
of goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

this is the desolation of a life lived for loved,
for the happiness of others, but the greed of the
living is the mocking shade of a wendigo's endless
hunger. i cannot give enough and i want more regardless.

there is a dark part of my soul and this belongs, also,
in grimm's old horror stories, where the beasties are let
loose. it is the old witch, the werewolf, the wicked queen;
the dark and dirty things. it is the thought that perhaps
i could lose you in the flesh of another, or in forgetting
you utterly, in letting go, in moving on, in bitterness,
in the forsaking of any happily ever after, in the
release of my heart.

It is against my nature to cry as I would like to,
with the agony of a lone wolf on the slopes of the
alpines, starving for something--

for love.

My lips are chapped, my chest full of dark silences
as I find my worst weakness to be my own mind, turning
circles around the happens of the past, the present, the future,
a constant enigma of wants and woes, baroque pain designed for dramatics.

I was once inclined to give my heart to you, as a gift,
with the thought it would be unnecessary to have anything in return;
which is a foolish thought of a young girl, too head-in,
with the words of love so quick and ready on her mouth.

I have been saving that word, tonguing the meaning of it
into the gums and roots of my teeth, hoping to force it a part of me.
with the taste of you, it seemed apt to give that word away, to whisper
it in the dark like I had always done so on telephones, a little fearfully.

You shoved it back in, a finger soft at my temple, toying the
strands of hair away. Save it, save it until you have no doubts
about what you mean, about who you are saving it for.

I have never been vain or foolish with it, I have saved it,
and I would have meant it, as much as my youth and
experience would have allowed. I do mean my love for you.

A friend and I stood in a book store, where the light was dim.
He said, "You look sad. You feel sad. The aura about you lately has been that."
And what could I do except for feel what I have been feeling,
which is the hollow sense of sorrow, of needing to be filled--
and these words have brought tears to my eyes, as even now,
the feeling is so prevalent, so real, and the only person
I would like to tell of it is thousands of miles away and
unwilling to take my heavy heart in their hand.

This has been an angry year, with desires turning to dust in my eyes.
It has been a red-wrought war, a battle fought to save the souls already damned,
a holy war for the hopeless and the wretched, the fallen angels and the nephilim,
to save the skeletons in shipwrecks and treasure coves.

I have been reminded why I like my blood to be gasoline and my throat
to be lined with matches; it means that the boys who carry sparks stray far away
from the smell of sulfur and car fuel. I am a disaster in no need of saving,
one that only wishes to be let alone to set flames to the wreckage of your bones.

It is about damn time to put some stars in my eyes
and let the rest of the world be as passive or apathetic
as it would like for, by the will of whatever deity or energy
exists, I ought carry the coldness of the celestial.

I will one day tattoo the shield of achilles onto my shoulders
and bear that weight with me everywhere so that war or peace,
life is etched ink-deep into my skin, and the power of Achilles' ireful sorrow
ought fill my lungs with the charred smoke of the dead, a reminder
to breathe a little more deeply, live a little more fully--

war leaves no room for lovers and so I say f*** the rest,
let me wrap myself in the velvet of the milky way and become a warrior.

I sprinted headlong across an open field in a lightening storm,
and the sky tore asunder above my head, forks of enormous power stretching
their threatening clutch across the clouds, transforming the world from
dark and gray to bright indigo, in a brief and horribly temporary flash.

A piece of me will remain forever in that moment, legs stretched beneath me,
the whisper of Zeus hot on my heels, prickling the hackles at my neck and in that
moment I have become ageless, rain against my face, a laugh so loud and free
in my lungs, so that breathing became difficult.

And the curse words were on my lips, the living fear of no tomorrow coursing
adrenaline, sweet energy, through my core. It was such a primal terror of
being caught and brought up, young and heavy, to the tempest above by the
lightening strikes all around--it was the only moment I have ever seen
bars on the sky, ephemeral as they may have been.

I have found so much beauty in the span of a few seconds,
the shedding of skin and worries, the bodily realization that
I am alive, so alive, and I cannot regret the living road we
have gone to trek. I can still breathe the storm and feel
the electricity, a hairsbreadth from my heart.