Tag: original poem

we’re drunk
and i ask if i can kiss you
even though i don’t
wait for an answer.
i feel your lips move with mine.
this is the first time
we’re dancing. your eyes
look different than they do
from far away.
have they always
had this much to say?
have they always been burning
holes in my heart?

i’m so much braver in my dreams // a.s.m

my biggest fear growing up was that i would become like you. there were always so many unanswered questions haunting your eyes. there was always something fragile– even when you yelled– the cracks in your voice made you seem so breakable.

like a flattened beer can on the street, life has run you over so many times that the solid roads in your eyes are turning to mud. you’ve been here before and you know there is only one way it can end. you’ve already lived this life once over and you know how you die. you’re too damn tired to prevent yourself from doing it again.

i’d only ever seen life as an assembly line of inheritance, where every daughter becomes the mother she said she’d never be. now i’ve looked myself in the eye and seen only green: only life, only potential for growth.

i am not made of the same eroding roads as you. i am green grass grown in dark fertile soils. i am soft earth, permeable earth, the earth that recycles itself. i dig my roots deep in the soil, and nothing can uproot me. i shout the depths of my heart into the stars at night and my meditations hum in the rise of the sun.

i find my strength in the soil.
i discover my voice within the wind.
my passion burns with fire. i gain
perspective from monstrous oceans.
i was born from the womb of this planet.

i could not be you, even if i tried.

i’m not so scared of being like you anymore // a.s.m

THINGS YOU DON’T SEE IN THOSE ‘THINSPO’ PHOTOS: self-hatred that weighs far more than any number on a scale. vomit stains on your favorite crop top. hating food but being able to think of nothing else. taking four hours to go grocery shopping because you have to read every goddamn label. your partner fearing their fingertips will break you. running in the park but being so focused on your heart rate monitor that you don’t admire the way the leaves are changing. hunger. HUNGER. HUNGER so deep it hurts. nausea. fainting when you stand up to give a presentation in class. always keeping Altoids in your purse. storing laxatives in the kitchen cabinet because you can’t go without them anymore. emptying your stomach to ignore the emptiness elsewhere. numbers. numbers. you never even liked math but now everything is numbers. everyone is numbers. getting high just so you can eat food and not feel guilty. feeling guilty anyway. hating yourself. self-hatred like boulders in your backpack. self-hatred that weighs far more than any number on a scale.

things you don’t see in “thinspo” photos // a.s.m

your doe eyes only know
innocence.
your lungs still breathe love.
your cheek against my 
hand, so trusting that
i will not
hurt you.
you fall asleep beside me,
sure that i will still be
by your side
when the skies turn
orange.

i wish i could trust so easily // a.s.m

i want
my fingers to tell
the story of how the
freckles on your collarbones
burst into stars under
my lips. you are an
entire galaxy beneath me
and i have
fallen hopelessly into you.
i am not quite sure
i could find my way
out if i wanted to.

i’ve fallen into a galaxy // a.s.m

while i slither out from
under the covers
below the black
sky that sparkles like diamonds in the light
and start jogging along the dirt
path at the end of your driveway,
you are dreaming
of your childhood dog.
everything in life seems a little brighter
after it’s gone.

i pull my socks off
my feet and push my toes into the dust.
i miss being dirty, i miss
the earth.
a cartwheel– the first time
my hands have touched the
dry ground in so long.
i am a child.

i pull off the scarf
around my neck,
the one you gave me
for my birthday last year, and
let it drop behind me.

i rip off
my white button-down shirt,
my black pants, my boxers.
i am free, falling
to the ground, melting
into the earth, i am clean
i am clean.

i am running, loose,
in the opposite direction
of your house. i am running into
the full moon.
tomorrow you will be
in my past life.
soon this, too, will seem bright.

running away from you, running towards something i’m not sure of yet. // a.s.m

i am never quite sure
if i’m actually seeing
you. can you see the
living if you don’t believe
in ghosts? and yet
i can see the phantoms
in one’s eyes. i take a step
away and realize
we’re all a little translucent
in the light.

seeing ghosts // a.s.m

suddenly you’re
speaking too fast and
i can’t quite remember
what we’re talking about.
have your eyes
always been this shade
of blue? and have you
always had that
small little scar on the corner of
your lips? you touch my
shoulder and look at me with
concerned eyes. shit,
did you notice i
was hypnotized? 
‘are you okay?’
to be honest, i’m not
quite sure i am: it seems
you’ve recently learned
how to shock me.

the moment you realize you’re falling for them // a.s.m

they told me i couldn’t 
hallucinate without
the LSD, 
that i don’t really hear the
wind whisper to me.
but this isn’t
a bad trip. i really do
have nightmares about
my own goddamn mother. and
sometimes i swear the sky isn’t blue
so much as it is the absence
of red. and sometimes
all the speaking i do is just
in my head and
the cars driving by sound like
my best friend committing
suicide after
eighth grade graduation.
this isn’t a bad trip.
i’m telling you, the ghosts
still speak even after
you’ve lost the ability to hear
them. 
i am stuck
in this dimension that
you only visit to vacation,
and let me tell you,
you’re never here
when it rains.

this isn’t a bad trip // a.s.m