Tag: poets on tumblr

Scars & Bruises

let me kiss your
black and blues.
let me run my fingers over
your scars and
read them like Braille,
so I can feel where
you’ve been
and what you carry
with you.

let me stare in awe at
the auroras of broken blood vessels
that read me stories each night.
I know the way your
cheeks bloom with roses
when I tell you they are
beautiful.
I know the way your
eyes shyly run away from
mine, but
every piece of art on
your body is a story I want to know
by heart.

Freedom To Believe What They Want You To Believe

they dunked me underwater

long before i could swim. 

i was not born 

with communion wafers dissolving

on my tongue. 

they took my mind and

threw a snake in it. 

a slithering snake that snarls 

at humanity and 

what they have become. 

but i will laugh and dance while 

i am ripe and still have the

recourse to forget. 

motion is the only guarantee: 

they’ve not stamped a cross

upon me yet. 

Toxic

not like fists and
bruises and whiskey
on your breath. not
darkness in eyes and
screaming.
not poison apples, 
but i love you’s–
i love you too much.
i love you because i cannot
love myself.
toxic everything i own
in a pile on your floor,
toxic take all that is mine.
toxic maybe we can share
the burden, too.
toxic take, take, take
all the love
i don’t know how to give
myself. 

Mary’s Blue

dark blue– like childhood, like
memories. like
sinking into a dream.
bite marks on the black
plastic instead of
on your lips. 
covered in stickers
of where you’ve been.
your heart’s been torn
off your sleeve and 
the hole it left in the fabric
keeps unraveling. 

Mother

every day we walk on
your back.
we stick needles in
your spine and fill
your lungs with our smoke.
we look you in the eye while
we close our hands around your neck. 

every day you
love us, cleaning our spills
to cradle us again.
we are fleas, but
you love us even when we bite. 

you keep trying to grow.
we keep trying to
cut you down.   

Happy Birthday, Daddy

i don’t have the ocean
in my eyes
or fire in my hair.
i was given
her dark traits, and
though they paint my face, 
my heart is safe
because you have taught me
it is not my sacrifice 
to this world. 

i do not need 
a phenotype to know
you are a part of me. 
every time i’ve hidden 
my mind from the world,
you’ve reminded me
sometimes it is okay
to scream. 
every time i’ve wanted to fly, 
you’ve stood behind me
and watched me go– 
you believed i would soar 
long before i knew i had wings.
let it be evident
through all i create, that you have
watered me well. 

Opening

the door’s been locked for
quite some time now. 
i’ve clasped the keys between
my fingers for so long
i seem to have forgotten i had them. 
it’s hard to let go
when my hand doesn’t know how
to unclench itself anymore. 
it’s painful,
to let the light in.
i have not yet adjusted. i do not yet have
the nerve to
walk through the door frame, 
where vague memories reside. 
these days i’m mostly
nerves, mostly
apprehension.
a steady vibration, a constant
feeling of free fall
in my stomach. i want to
expose my eyes
to things beyond my wooden wall, 
but what if
keeping this door open draws people
inside, and they dirty
my floors or break
my lamp or empty out
my fridge? what if
opening the door leaves me
hollow?