wrong

and i need to remember
normal
what normal is
was
carved cross the length of my arms
hooked round the base of my heart
punched through
every time i kissed you
every time i fell forward into your arms
every time i ran towards each moment together

you tell me you can't fix this
and i know
have known for a while
but i still do not know what's wrong
whether i am capable of fixing this
and i am afraid
so afraid
afraid i won't get back to normal

what is normal
where can i find it
how do i get to there
just what the fuck is wrong with me

because i do not like the slide
between each pale page of emotions
where i am stable then rocking

you tell me to get help
because you don't know what you can do anymore
that in the end this
is something i need to do
and i know this
but do not even know how to characterize
talk speak open any sort of words
to tell this story
and what exactly is going on anymore

for even this poetry is uncertain

disposable

inside, i asked you to speak your mind
and got no answer
as expected, really
since the you that sits at the back of my brain
is usually silent

and i asked you to tell me with your hands
what you think of me

push me, pinch me
drag your nails along my self-esteem
and leave me marks to be proud of, give me war paint
give me scars
do what you will to my body, take what you want
from my words

just leave my mind alone, leave it
to process this all later
after the blood has dried
and the room is empty
and i begin to feel full again

i wanted you to tell me, but by accident
that your mind is just like mine
and i don't need to worry
that when you open my body up
my mind will unfold with it
and you won't like what you see

and so i distract you from my thoughts
with the disposable skin that protects them
from you

vast

and this is
vast,
wide enough to carve
the length of my ribs open,
split along the vein and picked clean
by the birds,
trace your fingers along the edge
of the clouds,
hooked beneath and pull
hard enough to stir a breeze.

i’ll ask for the blood
and the bone of my body,
empty along the horizon,
stretched along the soft
curvature of the earth
and abandoned
face down in the fields,
for time long enough
for it to flood again.

in the end you
are left with nothing
but dust,
the glint of the sun,
the glare of the grass,
the scratch of the water
as it rises
inch by inch,
foot by foot,
mile by mile
along the edge of the shore
in the fields.

for we are nothing

but tiny.

tickets

drying my eyes with the crumpled plane tickets
that brought me here
as the new ones slowly print, inch by inch
and the ink dries upon my cheeks
and the time has been tattooed into my eyelids
ticking away, ticking closer and closer
to the end

closing my ears to the sound of cars
passing by on an open road
as the sound of wheels on concrete presses
into my memory and suddenly
i am in a taxi, speeding towards the last drop
of this city, and part of me is left behind
among the crashing water of spring
and the wood chips of an abandoned playground
and the puddles that we avoided as we ran
uncontrollably down the street
laughing

i am not laughing now, except to appear
alive as the boy who makes my coffee
makes me a joke too, free of charge
and i don’t want him or anyone to worry about me
so my mouth opens a crack, and my eyes fold inwards
and he smiles, placing my drink on the counter
and i burn my tongue trying to drown
that fake laugh

the tickets are done printing
the zipper has been forced
over the gaps between my fingers
where your hand should be
and the puzzle wavers as i pack it, but
the pieces stay together, at least until
i close the suitcase
and somehow, i am confident
that it will remain intact

i crumple the tickets in my hand
in an effort to make them look old
as if the summer had already passed
and i was on my way back to fill my empty palm
with warm skin, soft words and a hard press
of my mouth to the sound of something akin to home

i can feel the push and pull of two places
that have shaped me and are shaping me still
as my body curves around the ribs
and hips of a new kind of comfort
and the stiff seat in this airplane
reminds me that i am never as comfortable
as when i am with you

and i resign myself to sunny months
and warm music
and the discomfort of a puzzle
that is trying its hardest
to stay together

and i resign myself to dipping my toes in the water each night
pulling out the glue from between them
and keeping the pieces together
pressing my hand into the soft wood of the dock
in an effort to shut out the cold air

and i resign myself to the confidence i feel
knowing time will be on my side
when i need it to be

i throw the old tickets in the trash
and slip the new ones inside my passport
ready
to keep myself together

subside

as if there could be
those lines
something along the wave
of the water
the curve of my bones
a shallow scrape against the palm
of my hand
as i reach in against the mirror
to kiss the cool of the glass
while the panic
subsides

i am still waiting
for something
and it is unknown whether i
will be capable of feeling it
when i do
whether the moment
when i finally come undone
nails locked along the length
of my arms
teeth through the pad of my lip
something about my body
tense with an ache
the absence of control
whether it
will be worth it in the end

i say i should
be writing
i say i should
be able to handle it
i say

that this
is eventually sometimes not
worth it
whether in the end 

i can hold my body steady
that i can piece it together
lick the blood slowly
from the base of my skull
and pry the muscles apart
pry everything apart
until it no longer hurts

for this
is hopefully now
nearly over

The Me I Could Never Find

I AM LOST

Lost to the hollow sound that rings endlessly

That sound which feeds on the part of me that cries

The cries which reverberate against its emptiness

Filling me with that emptiness.

I feel only chains caused by voices

Those voices whom I’d trusted with all my years

Years that now seem too lonely filled with those voices.

I have lost my way, a way to get to you

The you who was really me, the me I wanted

But I fear the loss of the girl, that little girl who used to be me

That girl whom I could not forget.

But I am neither of them, I am something

Something unknown to me

And I search frantically for what that means

What it means to be someone who is supposed to be me

But isn’t, or no longer is or perhaps never was.

What is "I", when "I" have dropped to both sides of light

To be dull and red, slowly losing a mind that was never complete

Then suddenly I’m vibrant and violet, the world makes sense and everything else

Burns away never to bother me until I’m red again.

I’m in between brilliant and stupid, not quite reaching the full potential of either

Which is the worst place of all

Too stupid to understand myself

Yet too brilliant; understanding everything else.

Where do I find the one who gets it all?

I’m out of fuel, there’s no more gas to drive this band wagon

And there’s no more money to buy the gas.

Where do I find the balance, how does one make life worth living?

I’m done with the voices but they still rise up to be heard

I don’t want them swimming around in my head anymore

Free me, save me, but most of all just let me be.

 

Who are you again?

punctuating confessions

late night talking, but i can't tell
if i'm talking to myself
or to somebody else
and everything i say is either real
or just rhyming with reality
and to be honest
i don't know the difference anymore
i'll tell you, in words
overflowing with the truth
spilling out through the cracks of uncertainty
falling to the floor as lies
because
this is how it feels
and it feels like the only truth i've ever told
the rest is false, but at least i can tell you
that before the words left my mouth
they were flesh and ink and blood and water
alive and kicking, swimming
stabbing little things
but there's something about the night air
or the sunshine
or the real life, i don't know
whatever i'm missing, it affects them
like putting them in brackets
(emotions become afterthoughts)
like adding quotations
"this was said by someone else"
like ending the sentence
there are no more true words.

"i" was gone today

at every moment
there came a pause beneath the glass
as the cold passed through us
and the wheels rolled on
and the oxygen around us moved slowly
and we were safe

or at least that's how the day felt
warm and soft
a comfort to my scrambled, savage soul
as deep down below me
the beast
(the road)
was defeated

guess the world just seems to me
a place that needs to be defeated
every so often

guess the same could refer to me
now, that's a thought

a challenge!

rosa! marissa!

i challenge you to writing a lipogram. meaning you have to write a poem without using a certain letter. not once. time to break out the thesaurus. bonus points if it's still recognizable as your poetic style, though poetic style is alway shifting and up to debate.

alternatively you can write a reverse-lipogram, in which every word must contain a certain letter.

my lipogram is below. i refrained from using e and it was awesome and terrible cause you can't use half of the good words or write in past tense. it's quite fun though. let me know if you spot an e, i might have missed one.

and i was thinking if we have fun with this, we could challenge ourselves to do things like this more often, where we constrain ourselves to a particular poetic form or device to see what happens.

shvaugn

rhapsody

and within following

a rhythm of striking gold,

I am picking all divisions

of my body bright,

blank skin along 

a canvas, unshorn hair

matting against my skull,

spots of blood

and surviving murmurs

of your kiss upon my collar,

staining black, blooming

wild forms of joy

and gratification as I watch

my shadow unfurl

in your mirror,

with a grin and a laugh

as I lift up my arm to touch,

nails raw, and inch forward,

slowly,

my lips soft against glass

in rhapsody.

masquerade

the snow today
felt like a blanket
and my scarf was a masquerade mask
as i twirled through the day
on broken costume stilettos
with the stain of stupid words
colouring my lips

today, i finally came up with
something to say
that makes sense to me
now, all i need
is some other masked dancer
to say it to

can life just be a masquerade?
can we just judge each other
by tone of voice
and tilt of head
and honest things said
and simple choice
and just
that gut feeling you get?

today, i finally came up with
a request
and i've got the tape paused in my head
just waiting
for something to click
for someone to reach out and press play

please don't call me by my face
call me by my name

apologize

at least the man
who tried to kill me
was polite
about it.

his hand
rests gently
on the back of my neck,
nails rough and worn
as he traces his way
down the length of my spine,
turning each knob
with a definite crack
until he reaches the curves
of my hips
and digs in.
sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry.
i'm sorry. 
my name, something other
than a curse, a rope tied tightly
around us both, just hovering
between the space of his lips
as one of us, i'm not sure who,
starts to cry. 
we are left with
his hand on my heart,
knife on my gullet,
lips pressed softly to my cheek
in prayer
as he apologizes once more
and the moment
where everything pauses
and i brace myself
for the impact.

cannot

it is strange

and suddenly i cannot
only with the empty beat
of my heart along
the side of my rib
the hollow beneath the weight
of my stomach
built along the lines
that everything is now different
from yesterday

even when you kiss me
run your fingers through my hair
build the tension
along the base of my spine
and out across my abdomen
till you cleave my body in two
at the end of this moment

i am still whole though
still beating
breathing moving along
between the burst of my cells
and the boil of the blood
despite the possibilities
and the consequences

because you never realize
what it means to you
until you suddenly can't