Poetry And Prose - Blog Posts

Sometimes I think the dreams are either alternate versions of me or another person completely and I'm just hopping along in their life that night.

I had a dream I was a woman working in a book store but this woman was not me. I've had this dream before over a decade ago, same woman, same bookstore. She now has her own office so she's doing well since the last dream, she seemed happy, fulfilled. I woke and felt motivated to do something with my life. Maybe visit a books store, maybe I'd see her in the women checking out books, Maybe I'd one day see myself with my own book adorning the shelfs.

I wonder if she dreams of me, I wonder what she sees. Am I a recurring dream, the Young women that prefers to stay curled up, that never went out with friends and now lives half in a world of pretend. Does she see me lay in bed, lost but searching, waiting but hiding. Am I a nightmare. Does she wake confused and heavy and think thankgod that's not me.

Am I only ever meant to dream of what could have been.

It's nearly halfway into the year and I feel a little bit lost and heavy. I feel like a stone sinking into the summer months. warm. sleepy. Isolated.

An incoming phone call you say

And I freeze like a deer in headlights

Have I been hit, I feel blooding rushing past my ear drums

My heart is beating quick

then quicker, a fast rapid flicker

it's trying to run away, but my body won't move

Instead my body stands shock still and I watch locked in, but so far removed

I'm dizzy spinning around and round in my amygdala, a ringing is pulsing against the outside walls of it

trying to get inside

I cannot hide

Then the ringing just stops

it's stops

Incoming call is dropped and rational thinking has lost.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

I feel so worthless without your gaze on me Stare, glare, bore your eyes straight through Leave nothing of me outside of view Attention to feed from, this insatiable desire to be seen Everyone's replaceably rested in disappointing scenes Wont you please give me pity dripped nice and slow I eat it up past full then shamelessly plead for more Consume me, devour my failed youth as your dinner Make sure to savour every short coming for desert Worry, resentment, anger, lust - dancing toe to toe As long as it keeps your sights set on me I thrive to keep my audience begging on bare knees Anything that holds their vision a little longer Without the only lenses that saw me kindly How could I ever see myself the same? Maybe it's why I search for affection in others despair Why I've chosen to dance, and bleed, and die Come, watch me violently wither by my own hands So long as it's witnessed, so long as it's real I don't care if you hate me, just say my name

Date Written: 28th of November, 2023

Honest to whatever gods may be out there waiting on me, I love being the big spoon. I love wrapping myself around you as you chirp and sigh in your sleep, an enchanting orchestra of early morning comforts sung from the careful ridges of your spine. I love when you curl into my side in search of safety from the world, assured with no doubts that nothing bad can ever reach you beneath my loving gaze. I love the gentle kisses you'll place down my cheek to my neck as I bring you breakfast in bed and wake you up slowly to the quiet melodies of your favourite song. A private exhibition of love, learnt how to play on my old beat up guitar just for you. And though the duct tape on its sides warps the sound and there is a slight pressure placed on my heartbeat as I vulnerably share such an armature rendition - when you tell me you have never felt more loved, I decide to make a habit of my foolery for as long as these breaths shall last.

Date Written: 17th of November, 2023

We walk around the city as you reach out to grab my hand, I let you and in an attempt to hide from the rain, We wind up back at your place. Burrowed deep beneath the bedsheets, Both aware this wont last, But placated to keep ourselves here a little longer In exchange for the warmth that lies in another's heartbeat. Sweet passing conversations, thoughts of looking forward To learning the details of each other's hairlines, If only in a future that wasn't destined to realize with someone else. Never quite you and never fully me, I quietly think to myself. The stormy season hasn't ended just yet and for now, The touch of your lips is still an ever present sensation. So we lend ourselves to the shielded walls of early 2000s romcoms And the belief that either of us will ever be enough. At least until the sun is ready to come into our lives again, At least until we can tell ourselves the truth.

Date Written: 8th of November, 2023

Sometimes I think to myself my heart must smell the same as my room, full of smoke and blood and air thick with the sickly sweet fragrance of regret. Maybe if these wrists drip a little more, my inner child will learn what it means to win.

A victory.

A reward.

A choice.

I hope peace tastes like the clarity I've only known to last in the quieter seconds, where a favourite song plays and suddenly the rain doesn't drip quite as heavy as before. Where you're standing at a crossing next to someone and they smile at you and say "I like your t-shirt", and flustered you say back "I like your tattoos, thanks" and go your separate ways when the lights change.

Both better, neither changed.

Where you look in the mirror to see the face you haven't felt close to in years, no longer cracked.

A ghost's perfect portrait.

Date Written: 28th of October, 2023

Letter #31

I wanted to tell myself that it's all part of the process, but now, I know this isn't what healing feels like.

Date Written: 18th of October, 2023

Letter #30

These shoes never walked a single step astray From the memories of skin in that dingy underway In their wake comes everything I once held dear to say Tightened laces bracing forth through times of "come what may" While you fall on a prayer you wont remember me this way Love, you wont remember me each day.

Date Written: 25th of October, 2023

Letter #29

As I stare upon the reflection of my glass Containing the same thing I know May very well be what kills me one day I feel nothing. It's just me, my thoughts And the numb taste of an indulgent slow decline Deadline in hand, waiting on empty promises. I feel absolutely nothing.

Date Written: 1st of October, 2023

Letter #28

"You mean something to me, But yours or anyone else's care does not." Such simple, unassuming words Words ordinarily placed that would seem so innocent Yet, they come from you They come from you and that breaks me From you, they come with an unintentional, cruel, agonizing truth The words I hoped to hear one day Those three little words laced in honey so sickly sweet I will never hear them Not in the way I need to, anyway Never in the way I need to Love is not just a feeling It is a deep seated rule that we plead with at night It is a peace encased with care I would live for you, I would die for you I would give it all in a heartbeat But you don't wish for that So I exist amongst separate breaths Quietly, with promise To love is to know the person I see And the person that stands in front of me Despite their shared love of the number 8 Despite their infectious laughter echoing the same chorus Are entirely different beings One of them I will never know Both, I choose to love I helplessly love I unavoidably, inevitably love You are you, and I love you I love you without need for reciprocation I love you with only good will To love is to know I will never see you completely And indulge in what bliss it is to adore the shadows "You mean something to me, But yours or anyone else's care does not." To say that hearing those words All while knowing love stems from care That love is treasuring another's words and being Didn't hurt? I cannot lie. Simply, I love you Eight little letters laced in fiction so densely dreamt Words I wish I could hear spoken from your lips Truthfully, wholly, willingly You and your care mean everything to me. I only wish that I didn't have the sense to know I'm alone

Date Written: 26th of July, 2023

Letter #27

How many wounds can a human body take Before it inevitably falls into ruin? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions, perhaps? As my wrists join my shoulders, Join my torso, join my chest, Join my ankles, join my toes, Join my neck, join my back, Join each and every lasting scrap Of what remains to be my face Dripping at an ever rapid pace I guess time shall try the test Seeking battle to heal it's best Before my demons rip me of all flesh A bag of bones in wait to be refreshed Sunlight, their everlasting summer At last red no longer the only colour I do not know which side I want to win I only know I no longer feel the hands of fear Only numbness and a longing for the air To hold every inch of me it cannot yet reach

Date Written: 23rd of September, 2023

Letter #26

She didn't know how to rest yet Hadn't learnt the point of growing up Curled lips and big bright eyes Vein attempts at masking her truth She built palaces with her words Enrapturing swarms with pretty lies Answer "I'm happy" in earnest when asked Naive to knowing emptiness isn't meant to fill If only charms didn't cost her a sense of self When rose coloured glasses lose their hue Tell me, what else is a young girl to do? She'll learn the lesson of life eventually Little by little, day by day, Time will tell every tale that shall come Each rose petal guiding her forward The future will change her pace Discovering what it means to slow down Dream in something other than clouds Her mind knew not of certainty No shining knight, no protective shield Mercy found only beyond towering walls As their creator, she shall soon be their end But refusing destruction beyond herself There is only so much a tender heart can mend A limbo she lives, hopelessly hopeful Spinning until she becomes spun So for now, let youth recklessly take her It's not a lesson you can teach her She has to learn it on her own

Date Written: 23rd of September, 2023

Letter #25

I tried to study the art of being remarkable, but by the end of it I found I had become the most boring man alive.

Date Written: 21st of September, 2023

Letter #24

Please rip this heart from within my chest

Just as you carelessly tore your way inside

Begging for mercy, please, let me breathe

My dear, you must be a skilled sadist

I cannot handle another thought of you

Falling seems an apt term for it indeed

Yet you smile brightly, so wholly unaware

As I pull at strings asking how this is fair

Painfully puzzling with no answers to find

Accepting that maybe, just maybe

Between us, peace was never an option

Date Written: 17th of September 2023