forgiveness is falling from
the sky
pushing dirt and gravel
down the streets,
singing.

and i stand outside
mouth and heart open
wide and let it
drench me, inside
and out

clean and
consume me.

and as it permeates my skin,
i will not fight it
but let it in.

i’m ready to forgive // a.s.m

some days
you are silent
& to me it feels greater
than the 3,000 miles
between us.

& in this silence I fear
the worst
& in this silence I fear

a silence I know well

a silence I have felt
before

withdrawal of
emotions & words
intended to wound;

in my heart I know
you always call

but I am still learning
to feel silence
as more than a
punishment.

getting over a cold shoulder // a.s.m

i know you love me,
but it doesn’t make me
feel less alone

sometimes i want to ask you if
you’ve ever been
swallowed whole by something
entirely separate from yourself
but something you know
was born inside you

fermenting in the warm, dark
parts
expanding & shrinking
breathing
feeding
off of words & feelings
you don’t have names or reasons for

sometimes i want to ask you
if there are parts of yourself
you’re not sure you can
control

but

when i look in your eyes
unwavering
like nothing has ever made you
fear
your own mind

i know you love me,

i know you will say
no.

alone // a.s.m

i buried my bruises
in an unmarked grave
bouquets, hues of
blacks and blues and
greens
and as i recall each one
you’ve given me, i decide
it’s time for
a proper burial

peace of mind // a.s.m

i call you,
i call you & i tell you
my body has been shaking today
uncontrollably
like from my core
radiating outward to my
fingertips to my thighs to my toes

i am vibrating
like everything within me is vibrating
& i feel it in my mind, too
& you say “embrace it"
& i laugh

& i cry
at the evening news &
that video of quintuplets
embracing
each other on the kitchen floor
so full of love
without language
without knowledge
of this world

when i shake
my mind leaves me
& i wonder where it goes
when it goes

if i’m visiting
friends in other planes
with names i don’t know
who i don’t remember when i come back,

when i come back to you & you
tell me to embrace it
embrace crying
embrace screaming beneath my bathwater
embrace being overwhelmed & not really
understanding
things i tell myself i need to understand
to be human
but i guess that’s not true

because what do those babies
know? nothing, really
& they’re human & they love
& they are loved
& i’m a little more
conscious
of should be’s &
should not’s & should have’s
but maybe this is really
a beginning.

untitled // a.s.m

19 hours inside these yellow walls
and i can feel everything i had left
leave me

mom’s cheeks are sunken and sickly
she asks me if i know how much
a baggie costs; did she give you
too much money for gas?

and you,
you are angry
and you scare the shit out of me.
i’m scared
i’m going to hate you, too.

we are out shopping and
mom tells me she found
a needle in your desk drawer
as we pick out strawberries.

i don’t know how to reach you.
when you shut your bedroom door
you shut me out, too
sometimes i fear your limbs
will grow into your bedsheets.

i love you, don’t you understand
i love you?

i flip through the channels at 2 am
and can’t watch cartoons even
though all i want is to laugh
because i know i will
cry instead

and i’m sorry, i’m so
sorry i don’t understand

how we can be from the same womb,
the same hands holding ours
as we crossed the street,
the same health ed class, the
same high school, the
same town, two different
worlds.

it is the hardest thing to miss someone
who is still right in front of me.

2 worlds // a.s.m

there’s something to be said
for banging pots and pans
at two on a Tuesday
morning, the
dissonance of existence sounding
like gongs in the kitchen

and our roommates
groan and beg
us to go
back to bed because
they can’t hear
our harmonies.

For Zach // a.s.m

է

wingedpiglets:

We’re masked in clever conversation.
Witty remarks.
Perfect metaphors.

But poetry is not always
the set of fine china your mother
keeps locked in the cupboard.
It is picking through skin
and meat and getting to
the bones– sucking out the marrow.

And sometimes it is the stench
of decaying bodies.
Sometimes it is the taste of
someone else’s blood.
Sometimes it is supposed to
break you.

And we are not flowers– we
do not give off warm perfumes.
Sometimes we are fingernails tearing
through the yellow wallpaper.
Sometimes we are covered in
scars (inside and out).
Sometimes we are our own tormentors.
Sometimes we are the pain
we write about.

Don’t you see?
I live with my hands permanently
dirty, covered in everyone and
everything I have ever
touched.

Armageddon

wingedpiglets:

I was born amid chaos.
The first words to leave her lips
when I entered this world
were electric bolts of lightning;
his were thunder.
The pounding of
his fists shook my tiny universe.

I was raised amid the crumbling
walls of a marriage gone sour,
where conversations consisted of heaving chairs,
house-wide rampages, and
chillingly silent dinners.

I learned amid the uproar that
we are not safe from the monsters in our minds:
they escape through the darkness in our eyes
and the fire in our mouths.
They fuel the momentum behind the punch
and fill the cracks in our hearts.

I discovered amid the rubble that
love means fuck you and fuck off and shut up and you bitch.
That anger is holes in the wall,
bruises and scratches, and the crack in your voice.

I watched in the corner amid
the chaos I was born into, and
the Universe watched me recoil from
the destructive violence of sentiment.

I lived my life amid the thwarted truth
that the doors to the storm cellar must always remain shut
to protect others from the tornadoes inside.
And if God forbid
at some point my body could no longer hold the weight of so many
unsaid words,
and I collapse in a heap by your side, bleeding love and anger,
I must apologize; I must mop up my mess
in order to keep you clean.

But I am so fucking sick of
keeping you clean by
mopping up my messes, when
I am covered in your blood.

So I will get up and walk away.
I will speak chaos and tornadoes and destruction.
And I will not ask for your permission,
and I will not apologize

They Will Rust, But I Will Be A Flower

wingedpiglets:

The rhythm of
life is dictated by
ticking clocks.
ticktockticktockticktock
But my life was not breathed
to be conducted in the duple meter
of this mechanical march.
I was made from the
undulating ebb and flow of tides, the swaying
of outstretched tree branches,
the rise and fall of the universe’s chest,
the very same cells that bend
to dance with the wind.

My heart cannot beat
in synchronization with wound-up gears.